


Soulmate Drabbles

by blackkat



Category: Bleach, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale, Katekyou Hitman Reborn!, Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Drabble Collection, F/F, F/M, Humor, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-08-14 05:58:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 46
Words: 26,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8001085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles written for soulmate!AU prompts on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sasuke/Naruto

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [Soulmate Drabbles](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14744136) by [vanimia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanimia/pseuds/vanimia)



> Pairings will be in the chapter titles if you want to pick and choose. Prompt will be in the summary. :)
> 
> For this one: the one where you don’t know your soulmate until you touch them.

It’s probably a little ridiculous that their first touch is a kiss. 

Naruto is yelling, and Sasuke is smirking, and then there’s a hard shove against Naruto’s back. He falls forward, falls right into Sasuke so that their teeth clack and their lips smash together and -

In a heartbeat, in an instant, Naruto _knows._  And judging by the way Sasuke’s eyes go wide, not with the horror Naruto expected - expected in _himself_  - he feels it too. 

Distantly, Sakura is screeching, and Naruto knows distantly that they’re kissing and they should stop and it’s _not right_  - 

Except it is. Except nothing in the world has ever been _more_  right and Naruto wants nothing more than to keep touching Sasuke for the rest of his life if it’s possible. 

A hand comes up, closes on his elbow, and even through cloth the feel of it sparks across Naruto’s skin. Sasuke grips tightly, desperately, and at the feel of it something inside of Naruto eases, releasing with a sigh that’s almost relief. 

Sasuke doesn’t want to let go either.

Just like him, and no matter what front he puts on for the world, Sasuke doesn’t want to be alone, either.


	2. Madara/Tobirama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where your soulmate’s name is on one wrist and your enemy’s name is on the other and you have no clue which is which.

Madara meets a boy on the riverbank who shares his dream and thinks his future is set. His right wrist bears the name Hashirama, after all, and this boy can’t be his enemy when their eyes are set on peace. Soul mates are shared paths, shared futures, a lifetime shared. 

(Madara forgets that sometimes enemies can be closer than the dearest lover.)

It only takes a handful of moments for that idea to fall apart. Izuna leads his father to the river, to his friend, and as Senju Butsuma leaps to meet him, a boy with white hair flanks him. 

“Tobirama,” Izuna hisses, like it’s a curse, and the blood freezes in Madara’s veins. He looks between the two brothers, from horrified Hashirama to coldly furious Tobirama, and then at his covered wrists. Hashirama on the right, Tobirama on the left, and no way to know.

( _Safer just to kill them both_ , something in Madara’s soul whispers, and in the end - 

In the end, he _does_.)

(He never sees Hashirama’s wrists - Mito and Madara - nor does he see Tobirama’s. 

They are utterly identical. In beautiful calligraphy, both of Tobirama's wrists bear the name  _Madara_.)


	3. Sakumo/Orochimaru

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where you have the date your soulmate will die on your wrist.

Orochimaru knows his date by heart. It’s burned into his mind, an itch, an ache, a searing pain never to be forgotten or overlooked. He runs his fingers over it, where it lies on his arm in life’s-blood red, digs his nails into the skin around it, wonders wonders wonders who it is that will be leaving him so soon, so quickly, so easily. Such a close date, and if he shared it with anyone beyond Sarutobi-sensei, they would only pity him. 

He throws himself into his research, takes every bit of help Danzo offers even when it comes with so many strings that Orochimaru may as well be a puppet dancing to his tune. He takes it, studies, plots and plans frantically as the days creep by, and every passing hour looms like a void oozing out to swallow his feet as he slips down down down down. 

Wars are not conducive to research, though, not even cold wars, and when that day dawns Orochimaru is far from anywhere, trapped on a bloody battlefield in a mission gone wrong.

(He wonders, each time a body falls beneath his blade, if that was the one who could have loved him.)

(Sakumo is born with no date at all, just one solid line, and in the very last hour, with one hand on his tanto and grief forcing his shoulders down, wonders if he was never meant to be loved at all.)


	4. Naruto/Gaara

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where once you meet your soulmate, it’s physically uncomfortable to be apart from them for too long.

_It could be worse_ , Gaara thinks, watching Naruto lay out a borrowed futon next to his bed. Konoha is green, and that’s something Gaara is entirely unused to. Strange and foreign, but…not unpleasant.

Much like Naruto himself, Gaara muses, and when Naruto turns to grin so broadly at him he can’t help a very small smile back. 

No invasion, then, but that’s all right. No war to reclaim Suna’s resources, no father wielding Gaara like a blade. No attempts to tear them apart, because with two jinchuuriki, who would try?

“I’m so happy!” Naruto says, bouncing on his toes, still smiling. “I finally got to meet my soulmate!”

No one has ever loved Gaara before, not in any way. He met no one in Suna that he ached to be away from, and had thought there was no match for him anywhere.

But Naruto wants him. Naruto is the same as him, but…brighter.

Gaara wants to learn how to be bright, too. 


	5. Kakashi/Obito

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where you can transfer any injuries/pain your soulmate has onto yourself.

If there’s one thing shinobi have learned well, it’s how to dampen soulmate pain. 

Sometimes, lying in a hospital bed with his entire body throbbing dully, Kakashi really wishes that they hadn’t. 

He knows Minato has every spare jounin and as many of the chuunin as he can conscript out looking, knows they’re excavating the cave to look for any clues as to where Obito might have been taken. But this pain - it’s _terrible_ , stealing Kakashi’s breath and brainpower and will, sapping him of anything but the desire to make it _stop_.

Obito is alive, he tells himself. He’s alive, and Minato will find him. There’s no doubt, even if he has to call on every tracking team in the village and and among their allies to do it. 

Obito is alive, and that’s enough. For now, that’s all Kakashi can think about, even more than the pain. 

He closes his eyes against another wave, against a twisting, burning _ache_  that tears at his very being, and hopes like hell that everyone hurries. 

Not for himself. Not at all. But Obito is going through even worse, and Kakashi isn’t about to let his soulmate suffer, even if he has to drag himself out of bed and find the idiot personally.


	6. Madara/Tobirama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where you and your soulmate have matching marks and the marks glow when you’re near your soulmate.

The glow takes Tobirama by surprise. 

The instinct of a lifetime means he hides it automatically, shoving his sleeve down to cover the edge of the marks where they ring his wrist, and covers his stumble by leaping down from the trees, dropping to the ground. Ahead of him, his father pauses, looking around impatiently, and Tobirama quickly improvises, pressing two fingers to the ground. 

“No one is waiting or approaching. What I sensed must have been a patrol,” he lies, and can only be thankful that he’s at least a better liar than Hashirama, who’s far ahead. Hopefully, _hopefully_  the Uchiha he’s meeting is at least slightly friendly, and will warn him if he’s being followed as well. 

There’s a pause as Butsuma studies him, eyes cold, and then huffs sharply and turns back towards the Senju compound, sheathing his sword. “Fetch your brother,” he orders, and is gone in a blur of red armor.

Damn it, Tobirama thinks, blowing out a sharp breath as he staggers to his feet. The scrollwork on his arm practically lights up the shadows, and he likely couldn’t have hidden it much longer. 

Brighter means closer. And given that there are three people in Tobirama’s sensing range, it’s likely the nearest. 

The renegade Uchiha with dreams of peace, Tobirama thinks with a faint grimace. Well. At least Hashirama will be happy. 

Now he just has to go save his foolish brother from getting killed by Uchiha Tajima and the ass Izuna, meet his soulmate, and get back to the compound before their father can get suspicious. 

This soulmate business is already turning out to be a pain. Tobirama blows out a sigh, borrows a phrase his mother’s clan is particularly fond of, and mutters, “Troublesome.”


	7. Mikoto/Kushina

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where you and your soulmate have matching marks and the marks glow when you’re near your soulmate.

Kushina’s mark curls around her torso like a dragon, and she loves it more fiercely than she’s loved anything in a long time. There’s no exact shape to it, abstract strokes in mingled red and blue that shade to purple near the center, but it’s the most beautiful part of her, she thinks. Like a bright river flowing from her heart to wrap around her ribs and guard her back, and she protects it as best she can in a shinobi’s life. 

She doesn’t see Mikoto’s until they’re fifteen, returning from a mission together in River Country. The air is so humid it’s like breathing water, and the clouds break with rain every few miles. Kushina is miserable, and despite her usual fierce poise Mikoto doesn’t look any better. 

The river they eventually drag themselves to a halt at is a relief, and Kushina - who has never been shy about her body, even in front of the girl she’s been maybe-possibly crushing on for _years_  - wastes no time stripping off her uniform and weapons. She staggers three paces, cries, “Come on, slow poke!” and hurls herself in feet-first. 

It’s not as nice as it could be - certainly nothing like swimming in the ocean before Uzushio fell - because the water is a bit silty, the current is lazy, and the bottom is unnervingly muddy. Still, it’s cooler than the air, of only a little, and she surfaces with great reluctance. 

Mikoto is staring at her, wide-eyed and faintly flushed, her shirt only halfway off. “Oh,” she says, a little dazed, and then louder, “Oh!”

In an instant her uniform is on the ground in a crumpled heap, and Kushina has just enough time to register the dragon-like shape that flows from her heart and the brilliant glow that’s coming from it. Then another body is in the river, hands are on her cheeks, and lips are crashing down on hers, kissing her as they both sink beneath the surface and into cool green water. 

Kushina presses her hands against unfamiliar skin, splays her fingers out over ribs and glowing marks, and thinks dazedly that she never, ever wants to come up for air. 


	8. Sakumo/Orochimaru

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where soulmates are reincarnated and keep finding each other throughout their different lives.

The first time he’s a farmer. 

(Later - much, much later, after the wheel spins and everything changed more times than he cares to count - he’ll look back on the irony and laugh himself breathless.)

He’s a farmer with a sunburned back and calluses thick across his hands. His crops grow well, his house is modest, and he has few needs in a world where few are ever provided for regardless. It’s not a hard life, if only because it’s the only one he knows. 

He meets her on the road one day, when his well has run dry and he has to carry water from the river two buckets at a time. Her hair is long and shining-smooth, down to her knees, and he’s never seen anything so dark except the sky when the moon is gone. 

Delicate slippers are shredded on her feet - she ran away, he thinks, and doesn’t need to ask to know he’s right. The hem of her silk robes is dusty and torn, and she’s entirely without makeup or ornaments in her hair. 

He’s never seen anyone so beautiful. 

It’s a good life, what they build. There are children, and she learns more about crops and farming than anyone he’s ever met, and they laugh together right up until the end. 

In the next one, a strange man with purple eyes teaches him to use chakra, and then there is only war. 

He finds her on the battlefield, drawing a spear from her gut with a twisted grimace, and he knows at once who she is. She knows him as well, and smiles, and mocks him gentle with her last breath. He laughs through his tears, and follows her down into darkness. 

Ten more lives, twenty, a hundred. Some are kind. Some are bittersweet. Far too many are cut short, and they always find each other - a man and woman, two men, two women, a pair souls in any combination or variation - only to part and come together once more. 

And then - 

And then. 

On a battlefield once more, knee-deep in bodies, with a child at home by a woman who was not his soulmate but a friend, and Hatake Sakumo turns, shaking the blood from his blade just as reinforcements drive the enemy back. He takes a step to join them, but a flash of lightning from a cloudless sky draws his gaze, and - 

Hair, long and shining, as dark as the sky when the moon is gone. Pale skin, golden eyes, a fierce fury, and Orochimaru turns and sees him. He stares, shocked and frozen, and Sakumo _remembers_  in a dizzying rush. He drops his sword and _runs_ , reaching out, and familiar-unfamiliar hands reach back. Sakumo wraps his arms around him, whirls him right off his feet with a brilliant, buyant laugh, and breathes, “I found you.”

“Romantic fool,” Orochimaru answers, but when he pulls Sakumo down for a kiss he’s smiling, and his eyes are fierce. 

Even now, Sakumo thinks as he kisses back, he’s never seen anyone so beautiful, and through a hundred thousand lifetimes, he’s absolutely certain that will never change. 


	9. Shikamaru/Sai

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where you and your soulmate share an emotional link.

Soulmates are a weakness.

Sai knows this the way he knows how to breathe - instinctually, desperately, unthinkingly. Root operatives do not feel, they just obey. Any link to the outside world is ruthlessly crushed, shut away until only the faintest echo remains. None of them talk about it; if anyone does feel something, it certainly never shows on their faces, and they never admit to it.

(Shin, Sai sometimes thinks, had it easier than most. His soulmate was Root as well, taught the same emotional suppression as all the rest of them. There were no flashes to catch him off guard, no sudden bursts of feeling to trip him up. Someone older, he speculated once, late at night under the cover of darkness. Someone who already completed training, because they seemed to feel very little. 

Easier, Sai thinks, when he lets himself remember Shin at all.)

Sai has a soulmate - he’s not one of the fortunate ones born without. And…it’s strange. Unnerving. Everything Sai is is suppressed and buried beneath layers of training, but - 

His soulmate has a fondness for brihgt days when clouds race across the sky. Likes days with equal parts cloud and sun, and sometimes, sometimes Sai ignores everything he’s ever been told and sits in the very top branches of the tallest tree he can find, watching the sky. He marks each cloud as it passes, sketches the outlines of the ones that appeal to him the most, and wonders if he’ll ever be able to show his soulmate what he’s seen. 

(He doesn’t become “Sai” for a long time, or an actual teammate for even longer. But once he is, once he does, he doesn’t have to hide his cloud-watching anymore. Instead of a hidden tree, he finds a grassy hill, sprawls out on his back with his sketchbook beside him, and - 

A burst of surprise, too loud now that he’s not burying everything deep. It makes him startle, just a little, and sit up quickly. Wide, dark eyes lock on his, and Nara Shikamaru stares at him for a long moment before he scoffs. 

“I should have known,” he says a touch grumpily, but drops down next to Sai on the hill. “I thought our link was just too lazy to carry emotions properly.”

Because Sai is an asshole and learned from the very best, he smiles brightly and answers, “Ah, I’m sorry. That would be you, actually.”

Shikamaru rolls his eyes. “Shut up and let me cloud-watch,” he retorts, and Sai - 

Sai _laughs_.)

 


	10. Madara/Tobirama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where you and your soulmate share an emotional link.

It says something of the state of their world that for the beginning of his life, Tobirama can’t even tell which grief is his soulmate’s and which is his own. 

Kawarama’s death is when things begin to change. There’s rage in his soulmate, buried deep under layers of pride and humor and aggravation. Tobirama grieves, and he feels his soulmate’s panic, their uncertainty, their horror. For weeks afterwards they try to cheer him up with bursts of joy, with humor, with affection, and Tobirama -  he appreciates it. In return, he sends his own calm down the link, twists it up with determination and quiet certainty and fond exasperation whenever Hashirama does something particularly stupid. Goading their father, for instance, and it’s not the first time Tobirama has stepped between them. He’s also sure it won’t be the last. 

Then Itama is killed, murdered, and his soulmate’s rage redoubles with Tobirama’s renewed grief and horror. He feels them twisting together inside of him, his soulmate’s helpless anger directed at everything and everyone, but there’s little he can offer by way of solace. All he has is kept for Hashirama, and even that is wearing thin now. 

And then one day, the rage slides away, replaced with aggravation and reluctant amusement and the faintest growing spark of _hope_. 

Tobirama is a genius, and has always been very, very good at seeing patterns. It’s not hard to connect Hashirama’s frequent, conspicuous disappearances with the bright bursts of emotion from his other half. 

Maybe it’s for that reason, but when Butsuma orders him to follow Hashirama and report where he’s going, Tobirama spends an hour wandering around the woods and then returns with a tale of solitary training.

When he does follow Hashirama, when he goes to meet his soulmate, it will be on his own terms, and no one else’s. 


	11. Tobirama/Kagami

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where you have a timer on your wrist that counts down to when you meet your soulmate.

Tobirama knows from the beginning that he won’t meet his soulmate for a very long time. The number on his forearm is high, in the distant future. Not a childhood meeting for him, not like Mito and Hashirama’s (though, to be fair, they both share a third timer that’s several years beyond the first). Not a teenage love, like Touka is destined for. And that’s all right with him, because it means his soulmate _survives._  He’s calculated the time, written it out on paper in the middle of the night when no one will see, and he’ll be twenty-six when they finally come together. 

Twenty-six seems like an impossible age for a shinobi, right up until the very moment he reaches it. 

It’s the year their truce with the Uchiha is formalized. Butsuma and Tajima are dead, killed each other months ago, and between Touka and Izuna and Hashirama and Madara and Mito, and several other matches denied until now, the treaties come together easily. A date is set, welcomes are prepared, and peace is no longer a dream, but a possibility. 

Tobirama, however, watches the numbers on his timer fall away, calculates exactly when it is they’ll stop, and knows it can’t be coincidence that the final zero will come on the day of the meeting. 

Deep in the midst of the Nara Clan’s compound, surrounded by Uchiha and Senju alike, with only minutes left on his times as it counts down, Tobirama can’t help but keep his eyes on the shifting numbers rather than his surroundings. The fall away, slide down towards single digits faster than he had imagined they could, and even though he should be keeping pace with his brother, paying attention to the politics, all he can hear is the pounding of his own heart. 

He takes a step, shifting sideways out of Touka’s path - 

The numbers drop, 6 5 4 3 - 

A shoulder slams into his. 

Zero.

He looks up to meet wide black eyes, the beginnings of a blush. It’s a boy, an Uchiha boy, probably only seventeen, with wild dark hair and a handsome face. 

I - _oh_ ,” the boy says. “Oh gods, you’re my soulmate? You’re so hot. Just- _so hot._ I must have been the most pious priest _ever_ in another life. Or a martyr. Yay, congratulations me.”

Tobirama blinks at him, entirely speechless in the face of that flood of words. “Hello?” he attempts in response.

The Uchiha glances down at his bare arm, then up again, and grimaces. “Please tell me your counter just hit zero,” he says, almost plaintive. “If it didn’t, I am going to attempt a Doton jutsu even though I’m terrible at them and try to sink into the ground. _Permanently_.”

Tobirama can’t help it. He snorts, taking half a step back, and holds out his arm to show the neat row of zeroes already starting to fade to white. 

“Please don’t,” he says, and allows himself the faint tug of a smile. “I would hate to have to dig you back out.” A pause, committing the boy’s features and chakra signature to memory, and he adds, “I’m Senju Tobirama.”

“I know,” the boy blurts, then looks like he wants to smack himself. “Uh. I mean I’m Kagami. Uchiha Kagami. It’s - I was going to say nice to meet you but I don’t think that even comes close to covering it.”

“Not, it rather doesn’t,” Tobirama agrees, and it feels like his soul is lightening, like a warmth that reaches through him. Like family, like potential. He looks at Kagami for a moment, and Kagami looks back, and - 

“Oh, just shut up and kiss already,” Touka says from behind him, somewhere between annoyed and amused. Then, because she _lives_  to make Tobirama’s life far harder than it should be, she ducks away from his attempted grab and cries gleefully, “Hashirama! Mito! Guess who found his _soulmate~_ ”

Kagami laughs, startled and bright, and Tobirama can’t quite fight a smile even as he rolls his eyes, turning back. “Unfortunately,” he says dryly, “a whole host of idiots are part of the package.”

Kagami grins at him, and he’s beautiful. “That’s okay,” he says cheerfully. “I’m sure the package is pretty nice - um. That - that was not meant to sound like an innuendo. Oh gods. Can I go back to the Doton jutsu plan  now?”

Tobirama laughs, and thinks that if this is his soulmate, he’s well worth all the years of waiting. 


	12. Sakumo/Orochimaru

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where your soulmate’s ghost haunts you when they die.

“You’re not taking care of yourself, are you?” is the first thing Orochimaru hears when he’s woken from a sound sleep by the feeling of eyes on him.

As Jiraiya and Tsunade found out very early in their genin days, Orochimaru _hates_ being woken. They used to draw straws to see who got the duty, and it was one thing even Jiraiya’s crush on Tsunade couldn’t convince him to do for her. If anything, Orochimaru has just gotten worse with age—now, rather than coming up swinging with a kunai, he snarls muzzily, slams his hands together under the blankets, and hisses, “Fuuton: Great Breakthrough!”

Wind shrieks through his apartment, sending things crashing to the floor and hurling his papers everywhere. Stubbornly, Orochimaru grips his blankets so they won’t get blown off, drags them up over his head, and curls up like a nesting snake. Whoever wants him can come back _after_ he’s gotten more than half an hour of sleep.

“Impressive,” the same voice says cheerfully. “That was one of the best executions of a Fuuton I’ve seen in a long time. You’re good.”

With a snarl, Orochimaru sits upright and throws off his blankets, ready to snatch up Kusanagi and take off the intruder’s head.

The sight of the overly cheery bastard doesn’t help his irritation at all.

“ _You_ ,” he spits, and Hatake Sakumo, three months dead by his own hand, smiles rather sheepishly back at him.

“Me,” he agrees, rubbing a hand over the back of his head. “I…guess this is our second chance?”

For a moment Orochimaru debates just pulling the blankets back over his head and ignoring all of this. It’s tempting, and he’s already wrecked his apartment today—there’s nothing that will make any part of this better.

“You’re a _ghost_ ,” he says icily. “Unless you’re within twenty paces of me you’re invisible to the world at large. Touch is impossible without a large enough chakra source to give you power. This is not a second chance, this is a _headache_.”

Besides, he already has to watch Tsunade coo and make eyes at a transparent Dan. He’s not about to tempt fate by doing anything even close to the same.

Sakumo, of course, just gives him a kind smile. “Orochimaru, don’t be that way. Soulmates’ bonds can overcome even death. Isn’t that something beautiful?”

Orochimaru takes one look at the clock, snarls in his ghostly face, and hurls himself back down on his bed. The blankets come up, and he feels absolutely no shame in dragging them back over his head.

He’ll explore the romanticism of defying death to finally unite with a soulmate when it _isn’t_ two in the morning.


	13. Kakashi/Obito

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where soulmates can heal each other’s injuries.

One glancing touch to Kakashi’s arm as he passes, but it’s enough. There’s a shimmer of light, like chakra but not, and Kakashi sucks in a startled breath. Obito jerks around, ready to demand what’s gone wrong now, but one look is answer enough. The blood sheeting down Kakashi’s face is slowing, stopping. The deep scar that bisects his eye is healing over, far more quickly than medical chakra could ever manage. And judging by the widening of Kakashi’s remaining eye, the sudden lack of pained tension in his body, some of the hurt is disappearing as well.

“You're—” Obito splutters. “You’re my _soulmate_?”

“You’re _mine_?” Kakashi spits back, beginning to bristle. He obviously took the words the wrong way.

Obito jerks his hands up. “No, no! I meant—why? You’re good at everything, you’re a _jounin_ already, why would…” He trails off because Kakashi is staring at him, suddenly unbearably self-conscious, and winces. “Uh, Rin. We need to find Rin. Preferably now?”

His voice cracks on the last word, and Kakashi’s frown starts to lighten.

“Rin,” he agrees, and turns to leap down from the tree.

 _It’s just for healing_ , Obito tells himself, reaching out and catching Kakashi’s hand in his own. Pointedly, he ignores the startled glance it nets him. _I don’t want the bastard in pain. He’s…_

My soulmate, he doesn’t say, but there’s no other explanation for the healing.

(Besides, Kakashi came back for them. He changed his mind, picked his teammates over the mission, and surely that means _everything._ )


	14. Mikoto/Kushina

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where whenever you get a song stuck in your head, it’s because your soulmate is singing it.

“ _Aargh_.” Mikoto bangs her head against the table, halfway hoping she can muster up enough force to knock herself unconscious. “Fugaku, it _won’t stop_.”

Fugaku, being her bastard of a best friend, doesn’t even attempt to look sympathetic. “Think of it as their revenge for the time you were on an Alanis Morissette kick for two weeks,” he offers, which is _not helpful_.

Giving him a sideways glare from under her hair, Mikoto sniffs. “Alanis Morissette is classic rock,” she counters. “It’s not—not _this._ ”

Fugaku is still entirely unimpressed. “This being…?”

From outside the open kitchen window, there’s a flash of red. Mikoto whips around, a reaction that’s become automatic in the last few weeks, and watches her very pretty new neighbor returning from her jog.

“You know,” Fugaku says dryly, “if you stare any harder I think she’ll have cause to file a restraining order.”

Mikoto gives him a narrow look that promises cunning retribution at the moment he’s least expecting it and returns to her discrete observations. The woman—taller, leanly athletic, with the most glorious masses of red hair Mikoto has ever wanted to get her hands into, and ridiculously pretty all around—leaps lightly up the steps, tugging off her headband. Over the sound of the morning traffic on the street, Mikoto can just about hear a cheerful, off-key, “ _But I won’t mind if you take me home, come on take me home. I won’t mind if you take off all your clothes, come on take ‘em off. 'Cause I like you so much better when you’re naked, I like me so much better when you’re naked_.”

Fugaku, her eternal burden, takes one look at her poleaxed face and snorts. “I’ll just see myself out then,” he tells her, and smirks like the bastard he is. “You’d better hurry, Mikoto—it looks like she’s about to go inside.”

There is nothing dignified about the way Mikoto yelps, scrambles around the edge of the island, and bolts for the door.

Because he’s a bastard, Fugaku laughs at her all the way outside.


	15. Madara/Tobirama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where every lie your soulmate tells you appears on your skin.

_I hate you_.

It’s the one phrase that gives him hope he shouldn’t have, the three short words that mean everything when they appear on his skin. Madara says them, again and again, whispers them in his ear right before they kiss, breathes them against his arm as he slides into Tobirama’s body. He repeats them, over and over, when he thinks Tobirama is asleep, desperately watching them bloom on Tobirama’s skin as if once, finally, they’ll cease to appear.

He shakes with nightmares where he pleads with Izuna to forgive him, and Tobirama pulls Madara into his arms and closes his eyes, pretending he doesn’t hear.

 _I love you_ he says, and pretends he doesn’t see the way Madara’s eyes immediately flicker down to the bare skin of his arms, searching for black letters.

 _I hate you_ , Madara returns, and his voice breaks halfway through.

Ink rises like a bruise, like blood, spelling out those three familiar words, and Madara laughs. It’s a broken thing that cuts like glass as it falls from his lips, but Tobirama says nothing, no lie, no truth. He gathers Madara to him, holds him as he shakes, and doesn’t let go.


	16. Kakashi/Obito

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where you have a compass on your body that leads you to your soulmate.

It would be easy, convenient, if Obito’s compass pointed towards Rin.

He’s stood by her so many times, eyes on the tiny, elaborate marking, watching the needle twist and turn without regards to her presence. It hurts, sometimes, because Rin is the only one in the village who bothers to speak so much as a kind word to him, and if she’s not his soulmate—

 _Have hope_ , he reminds himself sometimes, when things feel particularly grey and bleak. The fact that the compass is moving means there’s someone for him, someone out there who _wants_ him the way Rin doesn’t.

Obito doesn’t notice just where his compass actually points until one day at the end of the Academy, when all the other students are gone and he’s been left alone, loitering so he doesn’t have to go back to an empty house. And—

Hatake Kakashi, genius and prodigy, comes to stand next to him, waving to the silver-haired man approaching the gates.

There’s a click, more felt than heard. A flicker of heat, a burst of warmth, and the compass rose on Obito’s arm turns gold, the needle going still. Obito yelps, jumping back automatically at the prickling _awareness_ that suddenly fills him, and feels a little better when Kakashi too stumbles and jerks. The other boy spins, eyes wide above his mask, and they stare at each other for a frozen, breathless second.

Sakumo takes one look at them as he comes to a halt and laughs. “Good for you!” he tells his motionless son, ruffling white hair, and then turns to smile at Obito. “Hello. Welcome to the family.”

Obito just about wants to cry.

“ _Dad_ ,” Kakashi protests, though the flush on his cheeks speaks of embarrassment more than anything.

“What?” Sakumo asks cheerfully, before his expression shifts to thoughtfulness. “You know, I always thought it would be Gai.”

The look of utter horror on Kakashi’s face says more than words ever could. Obito giggles before he can help it, and on impulse he lunges forward and hugs Kakashi tightly.

“Thank you!” he says, and pretends his cheeks aren’t wet with tears. “I’m so glad.”

There’s a long pause, and then Kakashi sighs, a little longsuffering. His arms come up, loosely hugging Obito back, and he answers like he doesn’t quite understand the meaning behind it, “You’re welcome?”

That’s okay, Obito thinks, smiling to himself. He doesn’t want Kakashi to understand, and he’ll make sure he never has cause to.


	17. Madara/Tobirama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where some people can see the red string of fate and follow it to their soulmates.

Madara’s soulmate is a stubborn bastard.

Of course, Madara has never actually _met_ the person in question; this is all conjecture based on the fact that Madara is _twenty-nine_ and the lazy, recalcitrant idiot still hasn’t shown their face.

 _Comeuppance for being such a bastard yourself_ , Izuna once tells him cheerfully, and Madara thinks longingly of their summer estate with the beautiful koi pond, perfect for dunking annoying younger brothers in.

Regardless. Stubborn bastard, because Madara outright _refuses_ to be one of those sixty-minute specials about withered old windbags finally finding their soulmates after decades of searching. He’d like to encounter his while he’s still young enough to have a sex drive, thanks. He deserves some sort of reimbursement for all this waiting, after all.

Of course, it’s right as he’s thinking this, feeling particularly grumpy and out of sorts, with far too much work awaiting him, that his red string finally pulls tight.

With one foot in the elevator, his briefcase in hand, Madara stares at the previously slack string, now leading up through the top of the car. A little desperately, he racks his brain for who else could possibly be in the office this early—Hashirama doesn’t have any court cases, and they’re gotten no new interns. Beyond that, it’s not even seven in the morning; even as a partner, Madara wouldn’t be here unless he had no choice. There’s no one—

But didn’t Hashirama mention something about his little brother coming in to replace their sacked contract lawyer? Madara has never met him, but if he were starting at a new office amidst whispers of nepotism, he’d certainly be coming in early.

Stomach simultaneously lifting and sinking (because if he’s correct he’s going to be related to _Hashirama_ , and surely that’s a fate worse than death), Madara steps out of the way of the insistently chiming doors and hits the button for the third floor, one eye on his thread the whole time.

He needn’t have worried; as the elevator reaches its destination, his string slides down to the ground, twining around his feet. Slowly, so slowly, the doors slide open, and Madara twists his fingers around the thread, ready to move, to run—

The man it’s connected to is waiting in the hall, red eyes sharp with intent that nearly bleeds over to excitement, and when his gaze meets Madara’s those startling eyes go faintly wide.

Madara feels exactly the same. He’s never thought much about his type before, never considered it, but—

 _Wow_ , he thinks, and it’s only a lifetime of developing a brain-to-mouth filter that keeps him from saying it out loud.

Of course, restraint immediately gives way to the edge of aggravation, and Madara snaps, “Twenty-nine _years_ and you can’t even manage a hello?”

Immediately, sharp eyes narrow, striking above the thin edging of red tattoos, and the man says icily, “Excuse me?”

A smart person would backpedal. Izuna would dig the hole deeper. Madara mentally flails for a moment, thinks ‘ _Screw all of this_ ’, takes a step forward, and puts his mouth to better use.

His soulmate kisses him back, so it’s not a complete loss after all.


	18. Sakumo/Shuuhei

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where your soulmate’s first words to you are written on your body.

“Who are you? An Uchiha?”

Shuuhei is dizzy and sick to his stomach and still reeling from getting chucked across dimensions by one of Aizen’s creepy stray experiments, but the words make him freeze instantly, eyes widening as he stares up at the tall, white-haired man looming over him, short sword in hand.

 _His words_.

He’s never given the words that curl around his throat much thought—they’re there, he’ll hear them someday, and that’s enough. They’re not as casual as some words, not as strange as others—Renji, for instance, got both lucky and unlucky with his _Kurosaki Ichigo, the one who will defeat you!_ It’s convenient that the name is included, but the other lieutenants mocked him more than once for the rest of it.

Shuuhei’s are just…average. Mistaken identity, he’d thought. It happens, even if he’s been a lieutenant for years now.

He’d never considered _soulmate in another dimension who will threaten me with a sword at first sight_. Shuuhei’s got a decent imagination, but even his isn’t that good.

Still, there’s only so much threatening looming he can take, even from someone who’s possibly his soulmate. With a roll and a sharp twist, Shuuhei sweeps the white-haired man’s feet out from under him, dumps him on his ass, and springs upright, grabbing for Kazeshini. “I’m Hisagi Shuuhei, a Shinigami lieutenant,” he retorts. “What the hell’s an Uchiha?”

The man blinks up at him, poleaxed. His eyes flicker down towards his right arm, covered with a bracer, and then back up at Shuuhei, narrowing sharply. Well able to read the suspicion in them—his captain has made an art form out of being a suspicious bastard, though Shuuhei can’t exactly blame him—he reaches up to the explosive band circling his throat. Removing it will prime the charge, so he doesn’t try, just tugs it up enough to show the scrawled characters on his skin.

There’s a moment of silence, and then the man laughs. His eyes light up, his face warms, and he grins up at Shuuhei like this is the happiest day of his life. Twisting his bracer out of the way, he returns the favor, showing the words that Shuuhei can see are in his own hand. “Hatake Sakumo, of Konoha,” he says, and takes the hand Shuuhei offers him, rising with ease. His smile softens a little, turns almost wondering, and he reaches up, brushing the backs of his fingers over the scars on Shuuhei’s right cheek.

“You’re a fighter,” he says, both amused and approving. “That’s good. I’d hoped.”

In the depths of his soul, Kazeshini stirs, interested. Shuuhei isn’t the child scared of his own blade anymore—he wouldn’t have been able to achieve bankai if he was—and doesn’t protest when the spirit hums in contemplation.

Before he can reach a verdict, something flickers, like reiatsu but…strange. Shuuhei spins, wary and tense, and Sakumo’s breath catches audibly. “My team,” he says, taking a step forward, and then stops, expression torn.

“In the middle of something else?” Shuuhei asks, weighing what he can sense. It’s a little confusing, but he thinks he can translate it into what he’s used to with a little extra concentration.

“A vital mission for Konoha,” Sakumo admits, mouth tightening. “But my team was captured, and if I don’t rescue them now they’ll be executed.”

 _Well?_ Shuuhei asks his sword silently, and Kazeshini cackles with glee, reiatsu surging hard and fast. That’s answer enough, from him.

“Leave them to me,” Shuuhei says firmly. “Is there a way to identify them?”

Immediately, Sakumo pulls the marked headband from his forehead and hands it over. “This symbol,” he explains, fingers brushing over the stylized leaf. A hesitation, and then he meets Shuuhei’s eyes squarely. “Thank you.”

 _I’m trusting you_ , he doesn’t say, but he doesn’t have to.

Shuuhei can feel a traitorous blush rising in his cheeks, making his face hot, but he smiles back anyway, wanting to lean in for a kiss but not quite daring. “Good luck,” he answers, silently cursing himself for being so awkwardly formal but unable to help it.

Sakumo chuckles softly, cupping Shuuhei’s cheek again and stepping forward. He kisses Shuuhei, light and quick, just a bare press of warm lips before he’s turning and disappearing, not as fast as a flash-step but close to it.

Shuuhei presses a hand over his flaming face with a groan, drags his mind back to people in danger, and heads in the direction of the knot of not-quite-reiatsu signatures with his fastest shunpo.


	19. Sakumo/Orochimaru

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where soulmates share extreme physical sensation — if one gets hurt, the other gets hurt, and etc.

It’s a fact of shinobi life, bearing a soulmate’s pain as well as your own. Orochimaru has always known it, has always felt the aches and stings and burns that accompany missions. Some people stake out the hospital as soon as they feel that pain; others seek out rumors of those with the same injuries they feel.

Orochimaru hurts with enough frequency that he knows his soulmate is another shinobi, likely high-ranking. He’s never specifically gone looking, mostly because he’s patient enough to meet them in his own time, but he does pay attention to the other jounin, who’s favoring an injury, who’s in the hospital, who’s on leave. Tsunade indulged him, when she was in the village, and then it was easy.

Now it’s not, but Orochimaru forces himself not to care.

Even so, the sudden agony that slams through him one night takes him entirely by surprise.

He staggers, books and scrolls tumbling from his arms, breathless with the sudden pain of it. One hand automatically goes to his gut, pressing hard over his stomach, and it hurts enough that he expects to see blood, but there’s none. Just a tearing, terrible ache right through to the core of him.

There’s a sound of alarm from deeper into the library, hurried footsteps, and then hands catch Orochimaru’s arms, helping him stay on his feet as he struggles not to let his knees buckle.

“Orochimaru?” a familiar voice asks, somewhere between desperate and bewildered, and is joined by another set of steps, lighter and slower.

“Careful, Minato,” a girl’s voice warns, and his arm is pulled across slim shoulders. “Orochimaru? Can you breathe?”

That, at least, is possible, if difficult, and Orochimaru manages a nod, letting the two young jounin steer him over to a chair. He practically collapses into it, gritting his teeth against the agony of movement—not even _his_ movement—and rasps, “The fool—I think this is suicide.”

No other cuts. No other bits of pain, not even so much as a stubbed toe beforehand, so it’s likely not a mission. Likely not anything except self-inflicted, given the positioning, the angle.

“Suicide,” Minato repeats, sounding horrified, and blue eyes are wide in his pale face.

Thankfully, Kushina is a little steadier. “Pretty boy,” she says sharply, and under other circumstances Orochimaru would be amused at the way Minato’s head snaps up, as if he’s answering to his actual name. “Recent failed missions? _Major_ failures. If this person went for honorable suicide, it was something big.”

Minato closes his eyes, brow furrowing. “Uh, Tracking Team 9 lost two members and four nin-dogs last week. Naru Shikaku’s squad lost a genin at the beginning of the month. Team 27 was captured and forced to give up the location of a courier team three days ago. A squad sent to—”

None of those feel right, but the litany is enough to get Orochimaru’s brain working past the dulling veil of pain. Suicide. A failed mission. Driven to the edge, then over it, and assuming his soulmate is truly a Konoha nin, assuming the information Orochimaru has stolen from Danzō’s other operatives is correct—

“Hatake Sakumo,” he rasps, pushing to his feet. He almost falls, but Minato catches him before he can. “It has to be Hatake.”

“Go,” Kushina orders, rising as well. “Minato, get him there. I’ll get a medic-nin. Hurry.”

Light flashes, as golden as the sun, and Orochimaru spares half a thought to be grateful for Jiraiya’s prize student and his cunning in scattering Hiraishin kunai across the village before his feet hit the ground and he’s running.

(He makes it in time, if only just.)


	20. Minato/Fugaku

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where soulmates can heal each other’s injuries.

Unlike Mikoto and Kushina, who are genin teammates and entirely inseparable, whether on missions or otherwise, Fugaku doesn’t actually have cause to interact with Namikaze Minato for years after they graduate the Academy. They were paired a few times in it, and Fugaku would resent that—the genius prodigy with the absolutely, painfully average shinobi—except that Minato was always so _nice_ about it. That remains his impression of the other boy, right up until they’re assigned a mission together at age fifteen.

Fugaku isn’t any sort of genius, but he knows how to work hard, how to push himself until he’s better than average through sheer force of will. Maybe because of this, he still has the one vital piece that Minato, for all his brilliance, seems to be lacking.

(Spoiler: it’s _common goddamn sense_.)

“I’m _not_ dying,” he repeats, faintly irritated after several minutes of watching Minato flail with increasing desperation. “Namikaze, if you would just _grab the bandages_ , I could wrap this and we could finish the damned mission.”

Thankfully, this seems to shock Minato out of his panic, at least a little, because he dives for their packs and tears through them, coming up with a roll of bandages within moments.

“I’m so sorry,” he says fretfully, starting to unwind them. “I should have been watching that last one, I knew there were more than the ones in the open—”

It takes effort for Fugaku not to roll his eyes. As clan heir, he’s more than familiar with unrealistic expectations, but no matter how much of a genius he is, Minato can’t be expected to keep track of _every_ _single body in a fight_. That’s just stupid.

“Don’t be an idiot,” he says before he can stop himself, and sighs at the wounded look it earns him. “You killed him, didn’t you? And I’m fine. He missed anything vital. Can I have those now?”

“I can do it!” Minato protests, reaching for his uniform shirt. He pulls it up before Fugaku can protest, fingers brushing skin, and—

The sudden absence of pain is enough to make Fugaku suck in a sharp breath. He jolts, and Minato instantly wrenches his hands away, babbling apologies. Before he can reel back more than a step, though, Fugaku catches his wrist, wonder building, and feels the pain ebb the moment their skin is in contact. He looks up, wide-eyed, to find Minato’s gaze flickering down to the deep stab wound.

Fugaku doesn’t have to look to know it’s healing.

“Oh,” Minato says, faintly dazed. He leans forward, pressing his other hand to frame the wound, and Fugaku closes his eyes, clenching his teeth to hold in a moan as soothing warmth spreads across the aching cold. He must make some sort of sound, because he can hear Minato’s breath catch, and when he looks again the other man is leaning in. the kiss takes Fugaku by surprise, clumsier than he expected, warmer, softer. Their noses bump, their teeth clack together a little jarringly, but Fugaku gets a hand on Minato’s cheek, shifts back and pulls Minato up against him, shows him how to tip his head and part his lips and—

 _Oh_.

They break apart, breathless and both a little dazed now, and Minato’s cheeks are cherry-red but he’s not moving from where he’s half-sprawled over Fugaku.

The wound in Fugaku’s side is nothing but smooth, pink skin.


	21. Suigetsu/Karin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where you don’t know your soulmate until you touch them.

It probably says a lot about their relationship that the first time Karin touches Suigetsu, she’s trying to strangle him.

Her hands touch skin for half a second before he can turn to water and escape, but it’s enough. There’s a lightning-shock of sensation, a jolt soul-deep, and they both freeze, staring at each other with wide, utterly horrified eyes. Karin’s mouth is gaping open, all happy daydreams of brushing fingers with Sasuke and finding out that he’s The One gone in an instant. It’s little consolation that Suigetsu looks just as disturbed, skin gone even paler than normal.

Sasuke, of course, takes one look at their faces and snorts. Loudly.

It’s the closest to laughter Karin has ever heard him, and under absolutely _any_ other circumstances, she’d probably celebrate.

“Oh god,” she says instead.

“Why _you_?” Suigetsu agrees, very nearly a wail.

Proving that he does indeed (and unfortunately) have a sense of humor under all the angst, Sasuke grabs Jūgo by the elbow and pulls him away. “We’ll give you a moment,” he says crisply, and leads the way out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind them.

“I’m going to kill him,” Suigetsu hisses. “That _bastard_.”

Karin’s temper snaps. “All my plans!” she cries. “You—you _planned this_ , didn’t you?! Now I can never have Sasuke!”

Suigetsu blinks. Blinks again. _Grins_. “My hobby is now a full-time job!” he laughs, sharpened teeth bared. “If you’re my soulmate, I’m never letting you be alone with Sasuke again!”

With a snarl, Karin brings her fist crashing down on top of his head. “And—and I’ll never leave you alone with your swords again, idiot!”

They’re _stuck with each other_. Karin is too aggravated to do anything but punch Suigetsu squarely in the face. The spray of water that drenches her makes her yelp, and when she scrapes her hair out of her eyes Suigetsu is laughing at her.

Hitting him has never worked before. With a snarl of pure frustration, Karin attacks him a different way.

It just so happens that kissing Suigetsu is the best way ever to catch him off guard.


	22. Hibari/Gokudera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where once you meet your soulmate, it’s physically uncomfortable to be apart from them for too long.

The time limit, if Gokudera is correct, is six hours and thirty-six minutes before the discomfort starts. After that, it takes two hours and seventeen minutes for the discomfort to reach a level where it can’t simply be ignored. Then it takes less than an hour before ‘discomfort’ turns into “pain”, with a fluctuation in the time that’s inversely proportional to the physical distance between them.

…Judging by how he’s had ample opportunity to test this theory in the four months since he met his soulmate, Gokudera thinks he can safely say that his soulmate is an _asshole_.

“Ugh, god damn it, you bastard,” he huffs, finally managing to get the door open. “I _told you_ to be back by six!”

Hibari just grunts, though he’s looking almost as sick as Gokudera feels. The pain is already starting to lessen, though, bleeding away under the relief of physical closeness. Skin contact would make it disappear entirely, but Gokudera isn’t about to push his luck that far. He still has bruises from the last time he got fed up and grabbed Hibari’s hand.

Still. He’s been dealing with an itch along his bones for hours now. There’s not a lot of patience, and even less sense, left in him at the moment. That’s probably what makes him open his mouth and declare, “Fine. Next time you patrol, I’m coming with you!”

Hibari stares at him flatly from under his messy hair. There’s a long moment where Gokudera maybe kind of braces for death even as he bristles warningly, and—

To his shock, Hibari grunts in what could be loosely translated as _agreement_.

“If you disturb the peace of Namimori, I’ll bite you to death,” he says, pushing past Gokudera and into the tiny apartment. He disappears into the back bedroom, leaving Gokudera gaping after him.

Well. Gokudera can probably survive without his dynamite for one night, if he tries. He’s decent with knives, after all.

Trying to remember where his set of throwing knives ended up, Gokudera follows his soulmate into the bedroom, for once not minding all that much that he’s been relegated to a futon in his own apartment. Except—

“Oi, bastard, that’s my pillow! Give it back!”


	23. Ikkaku/Yumichika

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where you can transfer any injuries/pain your soulmate has onto yourself.

_Don’t you dare_ , Ikkaku said to him once, out in the depths of the Rukongai. Before they were Soul Reapers, before they were anything close to the partners they are now, before even Zaraki. It was one of the first limits Ikkaku set between them, and Yumichika has been tempted to break it, tempted to take Ikkaku’s injuries and pain and make them his own in the midst of a fight, but—

But.

Ikkaku rushes headlong into a fight, is beaten down, gets back up. Yumichika stands on the sidelines, calls for funeral arrangements when things go bad, clenches his hands into fists and feels his fingernails cut into his palms and bleed as he holds himself back.

It’s fine, he tells himself. This is one more way he’s different from Ikkaku, another mark that sets him apart from the rest of the 11th. They don’t hesitate to watch their soulmate die, should it come to it. Better to go down fighting than waste away like the rest of the soft, weak Soul Reapers in the other divisions.

Yumichika bites the inside of his cheek until copper fills his mouth, watches Ikkaku rise, and thinks about how much he hates this.

He’s not as good at being Zaraki’s loyal dog as Ikkaku is. Ikkaku’s fully devoted to the idea, will live his life at Zaraki’s heels, following his ideology like a religion. Yumichika is colder, more callous. He uses kido when there are no eyes on him, uses his true release when there’s no chance of being caught. He leeches little bits of pain while Ikkaku is unconscious, takes them on himself because he loathes not doing otherwise. Zaraki is his captain, but not his god.

(Right from the very first, that’s always, always been Ikkaku.)


	24. Kakashi/Naruto

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where it’s impossible to lie to your soulmate.

With eraser dust in his hair, the smell of old chalk in his nose, and three tiny genin standing in front of him, Kakashi opens his mouth to say ‘ _First impression: I hate all of you_ ’. Harsh, maybe, but he wouldn’t be here if he had any other choice at all, and Minato’s son or not, nothing can change that.

But the words don’t come out. All that leaves his mouth is silence.

A shiver of dread slides through him, some touch of foreboding that he doesn’t want to look at too closely. Instead, he just makes a skeptical sound in the back of his throat, orders, “Meet me on the roof,” and lets a shunshin sweep him away.

There’s something in the back of his mind, close to where he’s buried his self-preservation instinct, that’s screaming in terror, but Kakashi’s had an excess of practice denying the reality of things; he ignores it.

In the middle of introductions, his sensei’s son, bright and bold and the perfect mix of Minato and Kushina, opens his mouth to say something and fails completely. His face screws up in confusion for an endless heartbeat before his eyes go wide, and he stares at Kakashi in complete shock.

_Oh no_ , Kakashi thinks, even as his heart jerks in his chest. _Oh_.

 


	25. Shizune/Anko

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where you only see color once you meet your soulmate.

As a child, Shizune wants her soulmate to be someone like her uncle in the stories Tsunade tells—someone strong and brave and noble and beautiful to look at. She thinks of perfect, of meeting this flawless person and watching colors bloom across her vision, brilliant and glorious, eating away the grey and white and black. Thinks of falling into each other’s arms, professing undying love, and living happily into old age with a brood of children and no unsightly wrinkles and happiness spilling out over everyone around them.

It’s just slightly possible that Shizune reads a few too many romance novels as a child, smuggled in between the medical texts.

What _actually_ happens is more in line with a comedy of errors than any grand soulmate romance Shizune has ever read.

They’ve been back in Konoha a bare week, if even that, still adjusting and settling in. the Hokage’s mansion is too big and echoing, full of dust in unused corners and a feeling of abandonment. Shizune spends as much time as possible somewhere else, and goes as far as doing a daily shopping trip just to get out of the house. Tsunade looks like she wants to call Shizune on it whenever she makes the excuse that fresh ingredients are just better, but she never does, and Shizune is grateful. She slips out with her basket slung over her arm, making her way through the afternoon press as she heads towards the market.

Somewhere in the distance, there’s an explosion.

Shizune flinches automatically, grabbing for a poisoned senbon, though no one around her so much as lifts their head. _Konoha_ , she thinks in faint exasperation, turning to look for the source, and—

There’s a yelp, a blur of limbs, an impact that knocks the breath right out of Shizune’s lungs. She shrieks before she can help it, knocked off her feet and tumbling wildly through the dirt for several yards. They skid right into the foot of a fruit stall with a jarring thud, and apples pour down on them, bouncing off skulls and shoulders and spilling into the street.

 _Red_ , Shizune realizes with a start, breath catching in her throat as she watches the spheres roll away. _They’re red._

Of course, half an instant later she realizes that she might as well be face-first in the other woman’s cleavage—very, very _nice_ cleavage—and yelps, hurrying to push herself upright. “Are you hurt?” she demands, because she’s a medic first and foremost.

The other woman—her _soulmate_ —groans a little and sits up, rubbing a hand over her faintly singed hair. “So that’s what color is like,” she says cheerfully, unknowingly catapulting Shizune’s heart into her throat. “Hi! I’m Anko.”

“Shizune,” she just manages to get out, and the sweeping glance she gives Anko to check for injuries somehow manages to stall on pretty brown eyes and violet hair. “I—you—soulmates?”

Gods, can she just sink into the ground and never come back up?

But Anko doesn’t seem to mind. She bounces to her feet with a wide grin, offering Shizune her hands, and when Shizune takes them Anko drags her right up into a hug. “You smell nice,” she says happily. “I bet I have the prettiest soulmate in Fire Country.”

A flush burns over Shizune’s face, right up to the tips of her ears, and she makes a wordless sound of embarrassed protest, ducking her head to bury her face in Anko’s hair where it’s come loose from its clip. “You’re—you’re lovely too,” she mumbles, and wishes it sounded warmer, smoother, _better_. Despite her romance novels, she’s _terrible_ at this.

But Anko doesn’t appear to mind that, either. “Thank you!” she says, clearly delighted, and when Shizune pulls back a little her smile is bright enough to rival the sun.

Shizune smiles back, and thinks that perfect has a lot more meanings than she realized.


	26. Cedric/Harry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where your soulmate’s ghost haunts you when they die.

“Oh, _Merlin_ ,” Harry says when he opens the bedroom door and finds a very familiar figure on the other side.

Faintly transparent, Cedric Diggory gives him a wan, crooked smile, rising from his seat on Harry’s bed. “Hey, Harry,” he says, a little wryly. “You’re all right?”

There is absolutely no value of “all right” that could possibly apply here, Harry thinks, the edge hysteria leaking through his daze. He almost wants to laugh, but it’s not funny in the least. “I— _Cedric_?”

The former Hufflepuff is starting to look a little nervous, faintly uncertain now. “I know it’s probably a shock, but I didn’t want to stay away any longer. I thought—whatever got me in the maze—”

“Not in the maze,” Harry interrupts, and the grief rips through him like barbed claws, sharp enough to make him furious. “It was a Portkey. Voldemort…”

He doesn’t have to finish, which is good, because he doesn’t think he can. Cedric’s expression shades back to seriousness, and he reaches out. Automatically Harry reaches back, even knowing—

Their hands meet, tangle, _hold_.

Cedric smiles a little at Harry’s astonishment, pulling him a step closer. “Is it different with Muggles?” he asks curiously. “I mean, I can’t really touch anything else without a lot of effort, but I can always touch _you_.”

Not for the first time, Harry is _breathless_ with thanks for the fact that he’s a wizard. “Pretty different, yeah,” he says, and thinks he won’t mention that soulmates in the Muggle world are generally stories of tragedy without any happy endings to be found. Then he finds the words he’s been choking on since he opened the door, and says quickly, “Cedric, I’m so sorry. You were killed because he wanted me, it was my fault—”

Cedric hugs him, tight and firm and undeniably real. “Never,” he says, warm and kind. “You-Know-Who is the one at fault. I’m just glad you’re okay, Harry.”

Harry closes his eyes and breathes out shakily, leaning into Cedric’s hold, and hugs him back as tightly as he can.


	27. Karin/Hinata

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where your soulmate’s name is on one wrist and your enemy’s name is on the other and you have no clue which is which.

Neither of Hinata’s wrists say _Naruto_ , neither of Naruto’s say _Hinata,_ and she can’t help the weak, selfish wish that she could trade out one of them for his name.

It’s stupid. It’s so stupid and sad and she _hates_ it, even before she knows who Kaguya is, before she realizes why Sasuke’s name is on his right wrist. Hates that she has a crush, that she can’t be better, stronger, wiser, someone who can accept and move on and grow.

 _(Hinata_ , her left wrist says, and the day it comes clear she laughs until she cries, cries until her throat aches, because it’s so ironic and so _true_. Her greatest enemy has always been herself.)

But things change. After the Chuunin Exams, after Naruto leaves, Neji comes to her and apologizes. He doesn’t quite bow his head, but he offers something better than blind obedience and conformity—he offers to train her. Offers strength and a push and a path to set her feet on where maybe she won’t think of Naruto every waking moment, and Hinata takes the offer gladly. She throws herself into work, trains and tries and fails fails fails until she thinks she’ll never manage anything else, but—

But then one day, she succeeds.

(She’s never felt something quite as glorious, honestly. Not even Naruto turning his smile on her can compare.)

When the call comes for Konoha to mobilize, when the war starts, Hinata feels like she might finally be able to make a difference. Neji smiles at her when they leave the compound together, touches her shoulder ever so lightly, and glances down at her uncovered wrist. (She never shows the one that bears her own name. Maybe it’s shame, maybe it’s regret, maybe it’s the fact that she still looks in the mirror and wonders what she can ever really be.)

“You might find your soulmate there,” he says. “There will be shinobi from all of the nations.”

Hinata looks down, traces the characters that cross her wrist in bold, almost angry strokes. “Karin,” she whispers, mostly to herself, and covers the name with her thumb. A woman’s name, but Hinata can’t even begin to image what she’s like or how she looks. Still, it’s reason enough to be strong. Reason enough not to let herself waver, no matter what.

“Right,” she says, and puts all of her determination into the word. She steps forward, shoulders squared, and Neji walks at her elbow, matching her strides.

(Across a bloody battlefield, across a war none of them are fully prepared to fight, Hinata catches a glimpse of red hair, feels a pull. In the thick of the fighting they come face to face, and Hinata finally, finally hears the name she’s stared at so many times spoken aloud.

“Karin!” the white-haired swordsman shouts, just as Neji cries, “Hinata-sama!” and—

They stop dead, both of them. Hinata stares, eyes wide, and sharp red stare back. Automatically, Karin glances down at her wrist, then back up at Hinata, and—

She smiles.)


	28. Kurama & Naruto (mentioned Kakashi/Kurama, Zabuza/Kurama, Sasuke/Naruto)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where your soulmate’s ghost haunts you when they die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since this likely needs clarification: This is set in the same universe as _reverse_ , with the addition of a person's soulmate haunting them. So basically _reverse_ \+ ghost!Naruto giving Kurama a hard time and getting vaguely traumatized along the way.

Kurama drags a hand through his hair as he staggers upright, casting a glance back at the bed. Kakashi is nothing but an unmoving lump under the blankets, only the very top of his silver hair visible, and Kurama has to roll his eyes. It’s not like _he_ did all the work last night, lazy bastard.

Deciding that coffee sounds like just about the best thing right now, Kurama staggers out of the room and shuts the door behind him, then turns and yelps, finding himself nose-to-nose with the ghost of his best friend.

“Sage _damn it_ , Naruto,” he hisses, taking a quick glance down the hall to make sure none of the kids are up. “Could you _stop fucking sneaking up on me_?”

“Can _you_ stop sleeping with my _teacher_?” Naruto hisses back, flailing his arms. “First Zabuza and now _Kakashi_? Kurama, it’s _weird_!” The last sentence is nearly a wail.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“We,” Kurama says slowly and clearly, because he adores Naruto but the kid is as thick as a damned _brick_ , “are _platonic_ soulmates. I _know_ Sakura gave you the talk about that, and I _know_ you had sex with Sasuke _multiple times while I was present_ , so how the fuck is this any weirder?”

Naruto’s face contorts into an expression of horror. “You were _watching us_? Kurama!”

For about twenty seconds, Kurama just stares flatly at his idiot of a soulmate. Then, taking a breath, he closes his eyes, counts to ten, and says, “Naruto. I was _sealed inside of you_. Where the hell else was I supposed to be?”

This time, the face Naruto makes is definitely more in line with him as a genin, forced to eat vegetables, rather that the nearly forty-year-old veteran of two wars that he actually is. “That doesn’t mean you had to _watch_!”

Kurama rolls his eyes again. “Idiot. If I had to put up with front row seats while you and the Uchiha screwed every time you had ten minutes alone, you can put up with me spending one night with Zabuza. And Kakashi is a long-term thing, so fucking get used to it. You don’t even have to stick around while we’re screwing. You know that, right?”

“But I know what you’re doing!” Naruto protests, though when Kurama growls he raises his hands. “Okay, okay, fine, but that’s _my body_ you’re wearing and it’s _still creepy._ ”

If Kurama could touch him, he’d thump Naruto’s head against the wall a few times to try and rattle some sense loose. As it is, he has to content himself with another very obvious eye-roll as he walks right through the man, heading for the kitchen.

Naruto squawks in loud offense, and Kurama hides a grin.


	29. Kakashi/Naruto

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where every lie your soulmate tells you appears on your skin.

“You’ve never lied to me.”

From most people it would be high praise, said thankfully, reinforced with a smile. When Kakashi looks up from his paperwork, however, Naruto is on the verge of scowling, brows drawn together and face caught somewhere between thoughtful and accusatory.

Experience keeps Kakashi’s pen moving even when he wants to freeze like a rabbit before a wolf. “I haven’t?” he asks, and after six years he’s able to strike the precise necessary balance between question and statement.

“Not once,” Naruto confirms, and Kakashi can practically see the wheels turning in his head. “Even those stupid excuses you always give—you always said them to someone else, not to _me_.”

Kakashi can feel his muscles winding tighter, his body tensing as if getting ready to leap through the window and make a break for it. Not that it will do much good; Naruto, when determined, is more than capable of hunting him down.

“ANBU aren’t supposed to talk to their charges,” he says instead, going for the tried and true method if distraction and flapping an airy hand at his former student. “Go. Lurk. I know Sasuke has been giving you lessons.”

And god, but that stings. Imagining what two healthy eighteen-year-olds with a mutual obsession regarding each other could be getting up to when they disappear into the forest. Kakashi tries not to think about it, tries to avoid the hot, angry growl that rises in his chest each time— _my soulmate, mine, you can’t have him, I won’t let you take him away from me_ —and the ever-present temptation to assign Sasuke missions on the far side of Wind Country just to keep the two separate. He made his choice already, made it the moment he saw a lie trace itself across his skin in time with Naruto’s words. Too old back then, with fourteen years between them; too broken now, an old, tired man more suited to sitting behind a desk with his knees creaking than he is to a young, vibrant, beautiful boy who has the world in his smile.

Instead of obediently moving back into the shadows edges of the office—far too much, Kakashi acknowledges to himself, to realistically hope for—Naruto perches on the corner of his desk, pulling himself up and swinging his feet with a cheerful lack of care. He scoffs, leaning back on his hands, and says, “Like anyone would try to kill _you_.”

The defense is warming, if technically incorrect. Kakashi knows _exactly_ how many people want to kill him, after all, and the list doesn’t tend to get shorter, only longer. “The four assassins last week would argue otherwise,” he points out.

Naruto rolls his eyes. “Like they could even touch you. The only reason you didn’t kick their asses was because you were being lazy.”

Actually, it had far more to do with the fact that Naruto is beautiful in motion, and even against a handful of poorly trained assassins (who, Kakashi is absolutely certain, only slipped through the rest of security because Genma was getting back at him for that crack about his love life), Kakashi would happily watch him fight all day.

“You had it handled,” he says breezily, forcing his pen back into motion.

There’s a long pause, and Kakashi can actually feel the muscles in his shoulders winding tighter. Silences around an Uzumaki are never, ever a good thing. He’s fairly certain he can wiggle out of any question Naruto throws at him, no matter how direct, but—

“I remember the first lie I told you,” Naruto says musingly, kicking his heels lightly against the desk. “When we were training, and you asked me if I was good at taijutsu. I told you I was.”

“That wasn’t the first,” Kakashi says, his preoccupied brain half an instant too slow to stop the confession. He tenses even further, halfway to considering the window as an escape route again, but Naruto just—

Grins. Warm and bright and victorious, full of mischief and mirth in equal measure. “I know,” he says cheerfully, and leans forward, kissing Kakashi lightly on the forehead. “It was ‘I’m fine’.”

He pulls back before Kakashi can even begin to gather the scattered mess of his thoughts, sliding off the desk and ducking back into the corner just as the door creaks open.

“Kakashi-sensei?” Sakura asks distractedly, her arms full of papers and Ino a step behind her, similarly weighted down and looking bemused. “I found those files you wanted on the Root members’ monthly physicals, stretching all the way back to—” She stops short, peering at him carefully, and asks, “Kakashi-sensei? Is everything all right?”

“I’m fine,” Kakashi says automatically, and can’t quite help the way his eyes flicker past her as he says it, landing on Naruto where he’s perched up near the ceiling.

Naruto tips his head, turns his arm over, and lifts the armor there. His mask is down again, but Kakashi is absolutely certain that dark ink just blossomed over his skin. It’s unspeakably ironic, that their first lies to each other are exactly the same, but Kakashi’s used to irony in his life. This is quite a bit kinder than some that’s landed on him.

“I’m fine,” he says again, swallowing hard, and Naruto _knows_ , but— 

Kakashi wonders why it sounds so much less like a lie this time around. 


	30. Sakumo/Orochimaru

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where you don’t know your soulmate until you touch them.

It’s raining heavily, and the entire world feels dark and cold. Orochimaru isn’t one to long for his creature comforts—he’s been a shinobi for far too long for that—but there’s a shiver that’s been working its way deeper into his bones for the last twelve hours, and everything about him is wet. In this case, thinking longingly of a roaring fire and a thick pile of blankets isn’t selfishness so much as self-preservation.

 _Almost done_ , he reminds himself, gritting his teeth against the sluggishness that wants to eat away at his abilities. The scroll his entire mission was centered around is on the verge of slipping through lax fingers, and he can’t quite make them tighten. But there’s a light ahead through the trees, just a bare glimpse, and at this point Orochimaru doesn’t care if it’s a Konoha patrol or an enemy squad. He’ll take the warmth either way. There will just be more blood involved in doing so if it’s the latter.

However, when he rounds a stand of dripping trees, it’s not one of the Iwa squads he’s had to dodge in increasing numbers the past few days. The Konoha flak jackets are unmistakable, and Orochimaru breathes out a sigh of relief that he can’t quite help, making to step out of the shadows.

The touch of cold steel against his throat stills him instantly.

“Sneaking up on us in the dark?” a voice asks, amused but with an undercurrent of darkness that makes a shiver unrelated to the cold slide down Orochimaru’s spine. “That’s not very sporting, now is it? Are you Suna or Iwa?”

“Neither,” Orochimaru answers evenly, not otherwise moving. “Konoha.”

There’s a pause, and the man says, “I’m going to turn you.” Then there’s a hand on his shoulder, firm but not cruel, a tug—

Callused fingers glace over skin where the torn fabric of Orochimaru’s robe gives way, and it’s like a shock of lightning burning through him.

Sword at his throat entirely forgotten, Orochimaru spins to face his captor, and finds wide grey eyes staring back at him. The tantō drops, and an instant later there’s a hand on Orochimaru’s cheek, sending a swift-fierce tremor down to his bones. His own fingers are on skin, throat and wrist, and he’s dragged forward, wrapped right up in painfully warm arms as Hatake Sakumo buries his face in Orochimaru’s sodden hair. A desperate laugh shakes through him, and Orochimaru can’t help a smile of his own. His grip is firm enough that he feels as if he never wants to let go, and not just because of the furnace-warmth of Sakumo pressed up against him.

“Of all the places,” Sakumo says, halfway between wonder and laughter.

Orochimaru rolls his eyes a little, because it’s been proven that finding one’s soulmate is a matter of fate, and it has to happen _some_ time. This moment is no better or worse than any other.

“You would prefer a sewer or an active battlefield?” he asks, and his voice is just about the only dry thing about him. It’s not exaggeration, either—knowing his team and his luck, those other two options were always likelier than he would prefer.

Sakumo laughs, startled but warm, and pulls back. Orochimaru thinks about complaining over the lost warmth, but one look at Sakumo’s smile framed by shaggy grey hair and he can’t quite manage it.

“No,” Sakumo says, and pulls the haori from his shoulders to drape it over Orochimaru’s. “No, I think this is just about perfect.”

The fabric is warm and mostly dry and smells of autumn leaves in an open field. Orochimaru pulls it a little tighter around himself and can’t help but agree.


	31. Minato/Fugaku

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where soulmates are reincarnated and keep finding each other throughout their different lives.

Some people are born remembering their soulmates. Some get a vague feeling, like déjà vu, but never recall things clearly. Some remember in bits and pieces over the course of their lives.  

Fugaku remembers at seventeen minutes after six on a Thursday morning, halfway through his daily katas with Mikoto, and promptly yelps, trips over his own feet, and falls headlong into the river.

(Mikoto, of course, just rolls her eyes, kicks off her sandals, and dives in after him, though Fugaku is convinced she takes her sweet time fishing him out, because she’s a terrible friend and actually made of pure evil.)

“Pulled a muscle?” she asks when they're back on dry land, cheerfully wringing out her long hair on the bank. The smug edge of her grin says she knows very well that that’s not the case.

Fugaku glares at her, shoving his hair out of his eyes, and then groans and puts his face in his hands. “I’m going to kill him,” he tells Mikoto, and it comes out muffled but still all too clear.

As ever, Mikoto perks up at the mention of murder. “Anyone I know?” she asks interestedly, then pauses. Her eyes widen at whatever look is on Fugaku’s face, and glee rises, chilling Fugaku’s blood. “Oh,” she says. _“Oh_. It’s _Minato_?”

“How do you even _do_ that?” Fugaku demands. “I didn’t say anything!”

Mikoto rolls her eyes, waving that off. “You wouldn’t be half this embarrassed if it wasn’t your boyfriend, Fugaku.”

“We’re not _boyfriends_ ,” Fugaku protests, maybe a little weakly. “We just—sleep together. Sometimes.”

Exasperation shifts into pity. “Yes,” Mikoto says, patting him on the head. “And you’ve been sleeping together at least once a week for the last year. That makes you boyfriends.”

Fugaku doesn’t ask how she knows that, because he’d really rather that she not tell him. Ever. At all. He just glares, and she grins back and asks, “So? What did you remember?”

Pausing, Fugaku considers all the things he could possibly say. It’s…hard. The man in his memories doesn’t even look like Minato, but Fugaku knows that it _is_. There's a sense to him, a feel, and Fugaku could never mistake him for anyone else. And not just because of the fact that he acts like a particularly adoring puppy all the time, either.

Before he can answer, though, there's a familiar flash of yellow light. No fool, and very familiar with Minato's antics at this point, Fugaku ducks on instinct, and a blond blur shoots bare centimeters over his head. There's a crash, a screech, a shriek, and two bodies skid across the grass.

Dread rising, Fugaku looks up.

With a shriek of maidenly horror, Minato surfaces from his faceplant squarely in Mikoto’s breasts and bolts so his feet. “Mikoto!” he squeaks. “I—you—I swear I wasn’t aiming for—”

With a serene smile, Mikoto sits up. She straightens her shirt, brushes back her hair, and says with perfect cheer, “I'm telling Kushina you groped me. With your _face_.”

Minato loses about six shades of color from his face, staggering back and all but diving behind Fugaku. “You're my soulmate!” he says pleadingly. “Aren’t you going to save me?”

Caught between Mikoto in psychopath mode and Minato's wounded puppy eyes, Fugaku has no good choices. He raises his hands, taking three long steps back. “If I remember correctly,” he says, with a dark look at Minato, “isn’t this how we died _last_ time?”

Crimson eats up Minato's natural tan. “I didn’t _mean_ to insult her!”

“Last time? Then nothing that comes next will be a surprise.” Mikoto rises to her feet, reaching for her sword. Minato yelps, but as ever, chooses not to do the smart thing and bolt.

Fugaku is almost one hundred percent certain that he was better off drowning in the river.


	32. Shikamaru/Sai

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where when you dream you’re seeing whatever your soulmate is currently experiencing.

The vast majority of Sai’s missions take place at night, which means he has the daytime free to dream.

He shouldn’t. He’s a puppet with no emotions, a faceless soldier serving Konoha (serving Danzō). There are no allowances, no luxuries. If Sai didn’t need regular sleep to function well, didn’t need his art to fight more efficiently, he has no doubt those would be taken away as well. Extra, unnecessary extravagances have no place in a shinobi’s life, just obedience and duty.

But the dreams—he hoards them, keeps them close, adores them in a way he shouldn’t shouldn’t shouldn’t. Sunlight and slow-drifting clouds and smiles that don’t look painted on, people without masks, no blood at all. He marvels at it, in the handful of minutes between waking and rising that he greedily keeps for himself. Laughter and friends and _family_ , and it makes him weak weak weak because he _wants_.

He spares all the pity that’s been left in him for his soulmate, seeing through his eyes each night. Sai doesn’t want even _himself_ seeing what he does, let alone the soul meant to cherish his, even if he’ll never be allowed to meet them.

(Shikamaru dreams of blood and murder and ruthlessness, seeing people falling fading _dying_ nearly every night after he reaches a certain age. After the first five dreams he goes to his father, asks him quietly about current missions, and watches his mouth pull tighter and tighter. He leaves the house early that morning, moving faster than Shikamaru has ever seen him move before, and doesn’t come back until right before Shikamaru heads to bed.

“Tell me,” his father says, unwavering. “Every dream that you can remember from now on, all right?”

Even as a small child, Shikamaru is no fool. He nods, trying his best to keep his body language unreadable, and turns away before his face can betray him.

Sleep is a very, very long time coming that night, and many nights afterwards. And if Ino just thinks he’s gotten lazier, well—Shikamaru knows when to keep his mouth shut and his eyes open, and this is most certainly one of those times.)

The missions come more frequently, after a while. Danzō gets tenser, angrier, more prone to punishing small failures severely, and Sai isn’t quite clever or swift enough to entirely keep out of his hands. Too prone to emotion, too sentimental, too easily attached to worthless things—those are some of the milder accusations. Sai takes them all, takes them and brushes them off as best he can to keep moving, clinging to bright dreams during the day and closing his eyes whenever he can on his missions.

And then—

And then one day he dreams of the exterior of the base, of the Sandaime, of a tall man with spiky hair in a short tail and a scarred face. Sai’s soulmate stays far back, watching the ANBU and the Hokage leave, and Sai vaguely hears a rough, tired sigh.

The door of the barracks opening wakes him, and he struggles upright as best he can with his right arm in a cast, already reaching for a weapon.

It’s the scarred man—Nara Shikaku, Sai realizes without the fuzziness of a drug-induced sleep. The Jounin Commander crouches down next to Sai’s bed, assessing eyes sweeping over him, and his mouth curves in a wry, sad smile. “Come on,” he says, not unkindly. “There's someone who wants to meet you.”

Entirely confused, Sai pastes on a smile, not failing to notice the way the lines around Shikaku’s eyes tighten ever so slightly when he does. “Is something happening?” he asks, in the tone Shin once assured him was a good enough try at cheerful.

(Sai doesn’t get sent on a lot of undercover missions. Sometimes he wonders, if they get the opportunity to meet in another life, whether he should thank Shin or blame him.)

Shikaku watches him push to his feet, but thankfully doesn’t offer to help. Sai’s dignity is already wounded enough from the last failed mission and his multiple injuries that pity will just make things worse. “Root was supposed to be shut down over a decade ago,” the man says, and doesn’t protest when Sai picks up his sword. “This time the Hokage is seeing to it personally.”

That doesn’t sound overly promising where Sai’s future is concerned. Just for a moment he thinks of running, putting all his skill into vanishing and escaping the village, but he’s aware of Shikaku’s abilities and knows he has little hope of beating them.

( _Besides_ , a little, much-quashed part of him whispers. _Your soulmate is here, with the rest of the ANBU. If we go with him, maybe we can find them._

Sai tells himself that the little voice has no bearing on his decision to keep his sword sheathed and obediently follow Shikaku. It’s just slightly possible that the person Sai lies to the most is himself.)

He lets Shikaku lead the way up out of the base, into the open air. The sun is up and bright, and Sai is blinded for a moment. He blinks, and sees a shadow moving through the glare.

“This is him?” a boy’s voice asks, trying for bored but with an edge of equal parts calculation and nerves.

Sai blinks the spots from his eyes, and a boy his age comes into focus. Spiky hair, intelligent black eyes, tanned skin—definitely a Nara. Definitely Shikaku’s _son_ , because Sai has been trained to recognize the clans’ heirs, and knows Nara Shikamaru on sight.

Knows him even better than that, if the rising mix of hope and realization in his chest has anything to say about it.

Deciding he’s certain enough to risk it, Sai gives Shikamaru his best smile, putting his effort into it, and dips into a bow. “I’m sorry for making you see such dreams,” he says.

There's a long pause, and then Shikamaru sighs. “Stop doing that with your face,” he complains. “It’s creepy.” His father clears his throat, somewhere between exasperated and amused, and Sai just catches sight of Shikamaru rolling his eyes as he peeks up at the other boy.

A huff, and Shikamaru says, the tips of his ears just a little red, “Don’t apologize. I'm…sorry we couldn’t do anything sooner.”

There's an ache in Sai’s chest to rival the one in his arm, a strange feeling in his throat, and he’s never quite been betrayed by his body, before, but—

It’s not…entirely bad, he thinks, a little dazed, as Shikaku drops a broad hand on his shoulder. They walk away from the Root base, and Sai thinks for half a second about looking back, but right before he does Shikamaru takes his hand.

Sai looks up at his soulmate, at the red-tipped ears and the face very determinedly not looking at him, and laughs. It’s strangled and unpracticed and a little shaky, but Shikamaru smiles back, small and wry, and doesn’t let go.


	33. Sesshoumaru/Orochimaru

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where you have a timer on your wrist that counts down to when you meet your soulmate.

It’s a conscious choice, made a very long time ago, that Orochimaru keeps his timer hidden.

Most people wear theirs proudly, check it often, and Orochimaru once did as well. He clung to those numbers, steadily ticking down. They spoke of a date far, far in the future, but that was all right, because it meant Orochimaru would live that long. He would find a way, find a path, and follow it right to its end.

A naïve fool, Orochimaru thinks now, wryly. He doesn’t glance down at the heavy black wrappings around his arm, isn’t tempted. The numbers are there, but he’s long since lost track of them, can't recall if there's a day or a century left to go before the meeting.

There will be no meeting now, and Orochimaru can't even bring himself to resent it.

He made his choice. It was conscious, calculated, and yet entirely emotion-driven. He can still recall Mitsuki’s wide eyes, his desperation when Orochimaru shoved him bodily out of the jutsu’s path. Orochimaru had intended to get out of the way as well, push them both out of danger, but he’d known before he even started moving that there was a chance he wouldn’t manage it.

Suffice it to say that he didn’t.

Still. Orochimaru’s adaptability is his greatest trait, and he thinks now, as he looks around, that this world is not entirely terrible. The forests stretch out around him, almost like Konoha's, and the air is warm. The villages are full of people who shy away from him unless he keeps the hood of his cloak up, but that’s hardly anything new, and the technology here is nonexistent, so Orochimaru has little need to seek out groups of people anyway.

(There's no way Orochimaru has found to create a jutsu that will take him back, but he’ll keep searching regardless. At this point Mitsuki is likely long since grown, Karin and Suigetsu and Sasuke all dead or withered in old age, but he’ll keep looking. There's nothing else to occupy his time.)

He breathes out a sound that’s not quite a sigh, tugging his hood back. There are no sounds around him beyond those of nature, and the road is empty for as far as he can see. No need to hide himself, then, and Orochimaru has done more than enough of that in his life. He thinks, for just a moment, about that strange group he avoided earlier—a boy with dog ears, a girl in almost modern clothes, a monk, and a girl who looked almost like a kunoichi—and wonders if he should turn around, seek them out and see if they have answers to any of the questions he’s entertaining. They looked quite rambunctious, though, and—

A scream. A child’s scream, echoing through the trees, and Orochimaru turns automatically, seeking its source. Not on the road, but off to the left, deeper into the forest and behind an outcropping it tumbled stone.

 _Interesting,_ Orochimaru thinks, drawing Kusanagi and leaping lightly into the branches above. They hold steady under his weight, and he leaps across the gaps, following the fading echoes of a second scream that shatters the air. A twist, a hard shove with just enough chakra to give him more speed, and Orochimaru lands on the far side of the rocks, practically on top of a boar-like creature. He ducks to the side as it turns on him, leaving the tiny gap in the rocks that it was trying to break open, and Orochimaru gives it a sly, taunting smile.

“My, my,” he says easily dodging its lunge. “Aren’t you causing quite the ruckus today? I can't even think with all the commotion. Won't you die peacefully so I can go back to my travels undisturbed?”

“She smells like youkai,” the boar rumbles, and with a turn with surprising speed nearly manages to impale Orochimaru on one of its tusks. Orochimaru leaps upward just in time, feeling the sharp tip score a line down his arm right through his sleeve, and flips in midair. A touch of chakra to his feet as he lands and he finds a steady perch on the creature’s back even as it roars and thrashes. It’s more than enough of an opening for him to bring Kusanagi around, edge bared, and take off the beast’s head with a single stroke.

The boar collapses with a crash, head rolling away, and Orochimaru jumps free, landing lightly on the leaf-strewn earth. He wipes the blood from his sword on the creature’s wiry fur, then slides it back into its sheath, checks that his hair is still up in its usual bun, and turns. There's a shadow tucked back in the gap between two boulders, small and slim, and Orochimaru crouches down, offering the boar’s prey his friendliest smile.

“Hello,” he says. “Are you well? Were you hurt?”

There's a pause, carefully considerate, and then the shadow stirs. With a wriggle, a little girl with dark hair worms her way out of the gap and immediately throws herself into Orochimaru’s arms. “Thank you!” she cries. “Rin was so scared! Jaken said to stay by the camp but then the boar came and—”

A shift in the air, something only a shinobi would catch, and Orochimaru moves faster than he has since he landed in this dimension. Shoving the girl back, he rises and spins, drawing Kusanagi in the same smooth motion, and the flat of the blade rings as it blocks another blade. Orochimaru meets the eyes of his attacker, as golden as his own, and—

Black cloth flutters as it falls to the earth, and the numbers on Orochimaru’s skin burn as the last one shifts to zero.

Framed by a fall of long white hair, those eyes slide over Orochimaru’s face, to his sword, to the counter on his arm. Orochimaru can't quite help staring at it, either, incredulous—even a whole dimension off where he’s supposed to be, the timer reaching zero at precisely this moment can't be a coincidence.

One hand with delicate claws moves right in front of his face, and Orochimaru flinches back, one hand coming up with chakra already gathering. But instead of aiming to hurt, those long fingers lightly grip his chin, turning his face up slightly.

“You do not smell like youkai,” the man says, eyes narrowing. “But you are not human. Nor are you a half-breed.”

Orochimaru grips his wrist, pulling his hand away with a warning squeeze. His physical strength has nothing on Tsunade's, and certainly nothing on Sakura's, but he’s hardly defenseless hand to hand. “No,” he says agreeably, and just a little smugly, because watching the powerful mentally twist with confusion will always be one of his favorite things. “I’m not.” A careful step back, and he glances down at the girl, just in time to see her go flying past him and wrap her arms around the youkai.

“Lord Sesshoumaru!” she says happily. “I was saved!”

Sesshoumaru flicks a glance at the boar, then at Orochimaru, and looks down at the girl. “So I see,” he says, and it’s cold in tone and gesture, but Orochimaru is hardly about to forget the fact that this man attacked the moment he thought she was in danger. “You worried Jaken, Rin.”

“Sorry, Lord Sesshoumaru,” Rin says contritely, though from her smile she seems to realize this Jaken wasn’t the only worried one. She turns to Orochimaru, and her smile widens, bright and friendly. “Thank you for saving me!” Then, a flicker of thoughtfulness, and she asks, “Are you a boy or a girl?”

Orochimaru chuckles, re-sheathing Kusanagi and taking another step back. He has room if he needs to escape, though he doesn’t think he’ll have to. “I’m beautiful,” he answers, and gets a giggle in return.

Sesshoumaru stares at him for a long moment, then glances down at Rin. “The numbers on your arm,” he says, making Orochimaru narrow his eyes. “What are they?”

“Sentiment,” Orochimaru dismisses, but before he can take another step back the lord is right in front of him, one hand curled around his wrist. His long sleeve slides down, red and white cloth revealing pale skin and dark ink. Orochimaru’s breath catches in his throat, and he doesn’t try to break away.

Sesshoumaru flicks a glance between Orochimaru’s expression and his wrist, and comprehension slides across his features. “You are Orochimaru,” he says, statement rather than question, and his fingers tighten.

Beneath their feet, Rin gasps, and then bounces on her toes. “You found them, Lord Sesshoumaru!” she cheers. “You found your soulmate!”

Names. Names on skin. Orochimaru had seen the absence of the familiar timers and assumed—

Assumed wrongly, it seems.

“I am Orochimaru,” he confirms, though Sesshoumaru hardly needs it at this point. Another tug on his wrist brings him closer, and he reaches up with a faint smirk, curling his fingers into long hair. “Well met indeed.”

Something that might be amusement flickers across Sesshoumaru’s face, but he dips his head when Orochimaru tugs a little on his hair, presses his nose to the curve of Orochimaru’s throat and breathes in. “Well met,” he echoes, and Orochimaru laughs a little at the twist of perfect irony that is this entire situation.

Well. He’s certainly not about to complain. This is one of fate’s machinations that has managed to play out in his favor, after all.


	34. Ino/Karin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where you and your soulmate share an emotional link.

Ino thinks of the emotions she gets as flowers. Happiness is dandelions in an open field, bright and sunny. Anger is petunias, as bright as resentment, and fear is red columbine. Bindweed for uncertainty, oak leaves for courage, yellow poppies for the joy of accomplishment. Every time she feels something strong, she takes the flower that represents it, adds it to that week’s bouquet.

Her father smiles every time he sees it, tells her that he used to do the same with her mother, and Ino smiles back, fiercely, wonderfully happy at the thought.

“That’s a weird-looking one,” Sakura says, eyeing the bouquet almost warily. “Trying something new?”

Ino rolls her eyes, slipping a handful of forsythia in among the magnolias. “I’m not going to _sell_ it,” she retorts. “This one’s for me, billboard brow.”

Huffing, Sakura rolls her eyes right back and changes the subject. “Whatever, Ino-pig. How do I say ‘I love you, but please meet my eyes sometime this decade’ in flowers?”

Despite herself, Ino laughs, sliding off the counter and heading deeper into the shop. “You embarrassed Hinata again?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Sakura protests. “We were training together and she tripped!”

Hinata is cute, but Ino is a little glad that she’s not the one with an emotional connection to her. Whoever Ino's soulmate is, they’re fierce and steady and have a temper, and Ino really, really can't wait to meet them.

It takes time for that to happen, though, and far more than Ino really expected. But eventually, Sasuke and Naruto wander back into the village after whatever sort of sabbatical they took following the disastrous Chuunin Exams, and there's a whole gaggle of people with them. Not surprising, given it’s Naruto. Slightly more surprising that Sasuke hasn’t killed them yet, but maybe long exposure to his soulmate has mellowed him a bit.

Ino leans against the corner of the flower shop, watching, and just has time to register a flare of irritation that’s most certainly not her own— _rhododendron_ , she thinks, _I am dangerous_ — before the redheaded woman walking close behind Sasuke turns with a snarl and slaps the white-haired swordsman next to her. His head turns to water just in time to drench her, and irritation shifts to rage— _petunias again_ , Ino starts, because they're a common one for her soulmate, and then she just…stops. Her eyes widen, and at the same moment the redheaded woman jerks and turns, eyes searching.

One step forward, another, and then Ino is running. The other woman catches sight of her, turns the rest of the way, and shock echoes down their bond, quickly followed by admiration and a touch of wonder. Ino laughs but doesn’t slow, and the same joy is rising in her soulmate’s face. They crash together, and Ino wraps her arms around the redhead, feels arms wrap around her in return, and they spin in a clumsy circle, laughing and smiling with happiness reflecting back and forth between them until Ino can't even tell whose it is.

“You’re a rose,” she manages at last. “You're a rose and you're so beautiful.”

She flushes, color creeping up her face, but smiles back at Ino as they slide just a few inches apart. “That makes you a violet, then?” she asks, amusement in her face, and Ino beams.

“Your violet,” she agrees, and laughs when the redhead flushes again. “I'm Yamanaka Ino!”

“Uzumaki Karin,” she answers, pushing her glasses up her nose as if she’s flustered, and it’s too cute for Ino to stand. She squeals and throws herself at her soulmate again, hugs her hard, and feels wonder happiness hope gratitude— _alyssum, pink rose, snowdrop, bluebell_ , Ino thinks, and always before her bouquets have sat in her room, alone and untended.

This one, though, she’ll press into Karin’s hands, be able to watch her eyes light up and feel her emotions curl inside both of their chests, and nothing has ever made Ino happier.


	35. Sakumo/Orochimaru

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where you don’t know your soulmate until you hear them say your name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (This kind of tunred out more "don't know them until you say their name" oops.)

“I'm just _saying_ ,” Jiraiya protests loudly, right in Orochimaru’s ear. “Don’t you want to have at least a little practice? Come on, you don’t want to embarrass yourself in front of your soulmate, do you?”

There's a vein starting to throb in Tsunade's temple. Orochimaru would be surprised that Jiraiya doesn’t notice, except that he’s long since stopped being surprised by anything related to his teammate’s stupidity. Taking a glance at Tsunade and the way her fists are starting to clench tighter and tighter, he slows his steps just a little to get out of the direct line of fire. Tsunade's been known to pick him up and use him as a battering ram before, and it’s not an experience Orochimaru cares to repeat.

“Let me guess,” she bites out, and Orochimaru’s eyes widen in alarm as he slows even more, because that’s the tone she uses when Jiraiya's been skulking around the bathhouses and bones are about to be broken. “You're volunteering to help me _practice_?”

“Well, yeah!” Jiraiya agrees cheerfully, and Orochimaru sighs and presses a hand over his eyes, wondering how the idiot has managed to survive to twenty. There must be something to be said for the idea that the gods look out for drunks and fools, because otherwise Jiraiya would have stopped breathing a long time ago. He stops walking, because in less than thirty seconds Tsunade is going to snap, and he most certainly will have to break them up or Sarutobi-sensei will give them his I-am-disappointed-in-you-but-also-laughing-at-you face, and Orochimaru _hates_ that.

Half a second before Tsunade's temper can boil over, however, there’s a bright call of, “Jiraiya!” from down the street. All three of them turn automatically, squabble forgotten, and Orochimaru studies the approaching shinobi. Familiar, as most high-ranking jounin are, though Orochimaru can't remember ever speaking with him before.

“Sakumo,” Jiraiya returns happily, waving. “You’re back from Suna!”

The silver-haired man smiles back, eyes flickering from Jiraiya to Tsunade, and then to Orochimaru. “It went well,” he confirms. “This is your team, then?”

“The lovely Senju Tsunade,” Jiraiya offers, and Tsunade glares at him, crossing her arms over her chest. Jiraiya's eyes immediately drop to her breasts, and that vein in her temple starts pulsing again. This time Jiraiya apparently realizes the danger he’s in, because he jerks his eyes up and waves a hand at Orochimaru in quick deflection. “And our resident snake bastard. Ladies, this is Hatake Sakumo.”

Orochimaru rolls his eyes, because Jiraiya gives new meaning to the term _childish_ , but before he can correct the idiot, Sakumo gives him a warm smile and says, “Ah, Jiraiya's talked about all of you before. It’s Orochimaru—”

He stops dead, grey eyes widening, and Orochimaru blinks. After a moment where Sakumo doesn’t do anything but stare at him, Orochimaru frowns a little and inclines his head, because he at least has manners. “I've heard many impressive things, Sakumo—”

It’s like being doused in cold water, like a shock of lighting, like a spark catching in tinder and setting a whole forest alight. The words tangle themselves in Orochimaru’s throat, impossible to unwind, and he takes a step back in mute surprise.

At the same moment, Sakumo steps forward, hands coming up to catch Orochimaru’s even as he pulls away, and that’s just about enough to stop Orochimaru’s breath entirely. He ignores Tsunade's sudden hopeful question, Jiraiya's offended yelp, and reaches back. Catching Sakumo's face between his hands, he presses himself right up against the man, a soft sort of avarice rising in his chest, and for the first time in his life, someone outside of his family and team doesn’t pull away from him. Instead, Sakumo wraps both arms around his waist with a deep, joyful laugh, sweeps Orochimaru right off his feet and spins him around.

“Sakumo,” Orochimaru whispers into his hair as they slow, still. Sakumo doesn’t let him go, just hold him tighter, breathes against his skin as the name sends another whisper of _awareness_ splintering through Orochimaru’s mind.

“Orochimaru,” the man answers, sounding the next closest thing to awed. He laughs a little, pressing their cheeks together, and Orochimaru likes the feeling, the closeness, but he wants _more_. He tilts his head, leans back just a little, and slants their mouths together.

Without so much as a hesitation, Sakumo kisses him back, warm and willing, still holding Orochimaru as if he never intends to let him go.

“Oh, come on!” Jiraiya protests from behind them, as ever far too loud and without an ounce of social graces. Even _Orochimaru_ is better at this than him. “Right in the middle of the street? Hey, come on! There are innocent eyes around. And—that had better not be tongue you just slipped him, teme, _oh my god_ —”

With a roll of his eyes, Orochimaru breaks the kiss just enough to speak, though he doesn’t look away from Sakumo's laughing eyes as he says, “Tsunade, do you remember when you lost your favorite underwear set?”

He can practically feel Jiraiya start sweating as he starts sneaking backwards. “Ah, yeah, oops, I think I have something really important I forgot to do on the other side of the country—”

No fool, Tsunade immediately rounds on him, fury descending like an avalanche from a mountaintop, and with twice as much destructive power. “ _What_?! That was _you_ , you damned pervert?!”

Jiraiya shrieks in terror and bolts. With a snarl like a lioness on the trail of a wounded gazelle, Tsunade takes off after him, and Orochimaru smirks victoriously. Far, _far_ too easy, really.

“You're amazing,” Sakumo tells him, laughing.

“I try,” Orochimaru answers without a trace of modesty. He skims his fingertips over Sakumo's cheekbone, slides them into his thick hair. “And you're amazing at this.”

“I'm amazing at a lot of things.” The older man’s grin has just a hint of wolf-sharp teeth, and his arms tighten under Orochimaru’s thighs. “Care to find out more?”

Orochimaru laughs, low and throaty, and leans in to kiss him again. “I've always been a fan of discovering new things,” he agrees.


	36. Madara/Tobirama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where soulmates are reincarnated and keep finding each other throughout their different lives.

He dreams of it in bits and pieces, scattered, fractured images all bound by a common thread of regret and anger. There is a face, a voice, an understanding that happiness is forever out of reach, that no matter what he does or how he struggles, this man will always turn his back and walk away.

(Worse still, he sometimes dreams of a black spear driving deep, of a hand around his heart. Dreams of cold red-black eyes and a smile with all the viciousness of an unsheathed sword traced in heart’s blood. Not his death, but—maybe the next best thing.)

“Forget about him,” he remembers his cousin telling him fiercely, in that lifetime when everything fell apart. “Forget about him and find someone else. Even if you're soulmates that doesn’t mean you always get a happy ending. Make your own, Tobirama, _please_.”

But that’s the problem with soulmates, he thinks in this life, walking down a busy street with his hands in his jacket pockets. No weapons, because there's no need for them here and now, but he keeps his eyes on the faces passing by him in the street and can't tell if he’s watching with wariness or anticipation or something in between.

 _Forget about him_.

It wasn’t as if Tōka never understood, wasn’t as if she couldn’t comprehend the push and pull of enemies bound together in every aspect but the most important. But—she didn’t, in the end. Couldn’t. Her soulmate died at his hand, and she forced herself to move on, to forge another future. And he did as well, to an extent, took the ashes and tilled them and grew something strong in their place. But it was never quite _enough_. A hundred happy lives, but the memories of the last are the only clear ones, and that life ended in nothing more or less than tragedy.

(Hands grasp his hair, pull it back until he can't see anything except mad eyes staring down at him, and he doesn’t know whether he’s waiting for a kiss or for a kunai to slit his throat.)

The wind gusts past him, whirls the drab leaves up from the street and spins them out into the steady flow of traffic, and he breathes out a gust of white. The hospital is up ahead, the windows of his lab are already lit from within, and the first flakes of snow are starting to drift down from the iron-grey sky. He stares up at them for a long moment, mind caught midway between his thoughts, and then looks down.

Wild dark hair in the crowd, dark eyes, a fondness for red. His breath catches in his throat, and for a moment he’s back on a battlefield, cold hands on his skin, madness in a face he would have should have could have loved.

He opens his mouth to call out that familiar name, too often on his tongue. Opens his mouth as it rises in his throat, but—

Stops.

Hesitates.

Waits.

The world teeters for an endless moment, and he doesn’t speak with the weight of the past on his tongue. The weight of a death, a life lived alone, an abandonment, a murder.

 _Forget about him_ , Tōka said.

But how do you forget the other half of your soul?

The world teeters, steadies.

It spins on.


	37. Ino/Hinata

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where color appears on your body wherever your soulmate touches you.

Hinata shouldn’t be as fascinated as she is by the way the marks look against Ino's skin, but she can’t help herself. They're beautiful, bright, blooming like flowers with every glancing touch and deliberate press of fingers.

Ino doesn’t have the same fascination with the soulmate marks, but she never fails to indulge Hinata's touches. They're tentative at first, shy and careful, and each one rises in pastel shades, a pale rainbow. Hinata pulls her fingers back quickly, casts a half-worried look at the other girl to see if she’s imposed, but Ino just laughs. The next time they meet she sprawls out on her back in nothing but her skirt and chest wrappings, smiles up at Hinata as her hair pools like a river of golden silk around her. Hinata's breath catches in her throat, her heart flips over in her chest, and she can't resist the urge to touch, couldn’t stop herself for anything.

This time her fingers press more firmly, and color blooms in jewel tones as Ino sighs contentedly. Hinata traces ruby across her shoulder, emerald down her arm. A swirl of indigo on the back of her hand, and Hinata slides to the side to lean over her.

“You—you don’t mind?” she asks timidly, and Ino smiles like a lazy cat, hooking an arm around the back of Hinata's neck and pulling her down. Hinata squeaks in surprise, cheeks suddenly burning, but before she can push away she’s distracted by the bright-dark sweeps of color that rise wherever their skin touches.

Ino laughs a little, and kisses the back of Hinata's hand lightly. The shape of her lips lingers in lavender for the space of several heartbeats, and Hinata finds herself entranced by it.

“I don’t mind at all,” Ino tells her, stretching and arching her back enough to make Hinata's mouth go dry. Desire makes her bold, and she lays a kiss of her own on the swell of Ino's breast above the chest wrap. Ino's breath hitches audibly, and the sound feeds Hinata's courage just as much as the rose-red burst of color in the shape of her lips. Another kiss to Ino's smooth shoulder, violet-blue, another to her sternum in deep dark gold, a kiss to her lips that leaves both of them breathless and flushed, mouths stained with stardust bursts.

Ino takes her by the shoulders, rolls them over and over in the soft sun-warmed grass, and it’s only after several moments that Hinata realizes she’s laughing. Ino laughs too, propped up on Hinata's chest with her long hair spilling around them and galaxies still fading on her skin.

Hinata's never seen anyone lovelier, never felt more beautiful herself than when Ino smiles at her like that, and she lays her hands everywhere she can possibly touch, watches marks bloom in between hot-soft kisses. Her marks, because Ino is her soulmate, and this incredible beauty is theirs to share until the very end.


	38. Kisame/Obito

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where it’s impossible to lie to your soulmate.

Akatsuki doesn’t meet all that often, too busy with mercenary jobs or tracking the bijuu across the continent. It does happen sometimes, though, and right now every last member is scattered around the main room of the base.

Obito watches them, hovering back in the thickest shadows without any concern that he might be seen. They’ve never noticed him before, after all, and he’s all too good at staying hidden. His eyes linger, just for a moment, on his cousin, tucked away in the far corner of the room. Itachi looks a little pale, a touch uncertain beneath the Uchiha blankness, and Obito feels his gut twist.

A world of truth built on a world of lies, and between Madara, himself, and Itachi the Uchiha own quite a few of them.

He takes a breath, takes a step. The shadows cling to the edges of his cloak, Akatsuki’s red and black, before they part and fall away, and his sandals thump lightly on the stone.

Instantly, Konan raises her head, rising and turning in the same smooth motion. The moment she catches sight of him, though, wary hostility shifts into surprise, and she takes a step back to put herself next to Pein rather than in front of him. The Deva Path glances at her, then back at Obito, and his eyes narrow. He stands as well, and says, “This is a surprise.”

The sound of his voice has Sasori glancing up, distracted from his argument with Deidara, and he blinks, which is about as much a show of surprise as he’ll ever give.

“What?” Deidara protests, offended at losing his verbal sparring partner’s attention. He turns too, eyes landing on Obito, and falters. “Who are you, un? Did we get a new member?”

Obito doesn’t waver, though. All of his focus is on the shape next to Kakuzu, half dark and half light, watching him with building confusion and a little bit of wariness.

“Tobi,” Zetsu says, falsely cheerful. “What are you doing in here? Be a good boy and let’s go back to—”

“You tricked me,” Obito says, low but sharp enough to cut through the chatter, and ignores the way Hidan and Kakuzu are rising to their feet as well, looking interested and wary. “You tricked all of us. I’d congratulate you on a job well done if I wasn’t so ready to rip your throat out for it.”

“Hey, hey,” Kisame says, a cheerful lilt in his voice as he steps between them. “Easy now.”

But Kisame standing right in front of him eats away the last restraint on Obito's simmering temper, and he reaches up, grabs his mask and flings it away with a snarl to shatter against the wall. The crash and clatter almost manage to cover Itachi's soft sound of shock, but Obito doesn’t take his eyes from the Kiri nin looming over him.

“Lie to me,” he says, and it comes out guttural and angry. “Kisame. Tell me a lie.”

Kisame's eyes narrow a little, and they slide from the scars on Obito's right side to meet his gaze, considering. “What will something like that accomplish?” he wants to know, and his tone is light but there's a warning buried behind the words.

“It doesn’t matter!” Obito snaps, frustrated. “Tell me the damned sky is green if you want. Just _lie_.” He holds Kisame's eyes, trying to convince him, trying to tell him that, knowing how Kisame feels about falsehoods, he wouldn’t ask without a good reason.

Something of that must carry over, because Kisame's expression eases just a little. He nods, opens his mouth, and says—

Nothing. Not a single whisper of sound makes it past his throat.

The swordsman’s face pales three shades, and he stares at Obito as if he’s never seen him before.

Viciously satisfied, Obito steps around him, glaring at Zetsu. “You told me _Rin_ was my soulmate,” he says dangerously. “You told me my soulmate was killed by my teammate. You _lied to me_.”

In a blur of sudden movement, Zetsu leaps back, chakra pouring into the ground. There’s half a second before he vanishes into the earth and escapes, but half a second is all an ability like Obito's needs. He snarls, and Kamui snatches Zetsu right off the ground and whirls him away.

The surge of chakra needed to carry the plant-man not just into the Kamui dimension but across it, straight into another with no way back, makes Obito stagger as his knees give way. Half an instant before he hits the floor, though, a big hand grabs his elbow, and a blue-skinned arm slides around his waist. Obito grips his forearm, closes his eyes as rage and hatred and grief all surge inside of him, and—

It’s done. It is. But no matter what happens now, nothing can ever be _un_ done, and the past twelve years of Obito's life have been nothing but a lie. Rin wasn’t his soulmate. Zetsu and Madara told him that to manipulate him. All his hope for kindness and love died with her, but it’s _not_ hopeless. There's still a chance. And that chance is currently staring at Obito, holding him up as if he’s afraid letting go will leave Obito broken.

For one half of a moment, Obito thinks about telling Kisame to release him.

He doesn’t.

Instead, he turns in Kisame's grip, looks up to meet his wide eyes for half a second that’s just about all he can bear. Then, with a snarl directed at himself more than anything, he fists his hands in Kisame's shirt and leans forward, dropping his forehead against the swordsman’s chest.

“Tell me a lie,” Kisame says in his ear, lowering his head to place a kiss on Obito's scarred cheek.

Obito takes a breath, opens his mouth to say _my name is Uchiha Madara_.

Silence is the only answer, and Kisame laughs like it’s the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard.


	39. Jiraiya/Orochimaru

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where every lie your soulmate tells you appears on your skin.

Orochimaru is almost halfway home, groceries for the next few days in his arms, when he hears the sounds of a scuffle, the thud of fists, and an all too familiar cry.

“Get—off! Get off, get off, get off!”

He freezes, biting his lip as he tries to decide what to do. Jiraiya won't thank him if he steps in to even the odds, but if he passes by and allows Jiraiya to get beaten up—again—Sarutobi-sensei will be tired and disappointed tomorrow at training. And, even worse, Tsunade will be _sad_.

There are very few things Orochimaru would not do to keep from making Tsunade sad.

(And—maybe the sight of Jiraiya with bruises is…not exactly something he wants to see. _Maybe_.)

With a resigned sigh, he sets his groceries down off the path, twists his hair up into a bun pinned in place with two senbon, and heads around the curve of the road at a slightly faster pace than he would normally use. There's a set of kunai inside his robes, and he has his summoning seal already inked into his skin if he needs to call Manda, but that’s likely overkill. Jiraiya is forever getting in over his head, and it’s his own fault for picking fights with chuunin and tokujo.

And, as Orochimaru expected, the two boys Orochimaru is grappling with are at least twice their age, and twice their size as well. One has a hold on Jiraiya's legs as he tries to kick the older boy off, and the other has his head and shoulders, with Jiraiya suspended off the ground between them as he fights and wriggles. Orochimaru rolls his eyes a little, wondering what they said to set Jiraiya off this time, but gamely raises his hands, shaping a seal.

“Hidden Shadow Snake Hands!” he says, loudly and clearly enough that they’ll most certainly hear it, even though he hardly needs the words.

Snakes pour from his sleeves, white and slender and heading right for the two older boys. They turn at the sound of his voice, see the snakes, and drop Jiraiya with twin yelps of alarm as they go scurrying back. Orochimaru watches, vaguely annoyed, as they turn and bolt, but then, he supposes he’s used to the way people fear even harmless snakes. A touch of will and a hand sign dismiss the summons, and he steps carefully over to where Jiraiya is just picking himself off the ground.

“Are you all right?” he asks quietly, still a little wary of this boy he’s known only a handful of weeks. They tend to do best when Tsunade is between them, or when Orochimaru is between Jiraiya and Tsunade. Orochimaru can't think of more than two times they’ve been together without her or Sarutobi.

“I'm fine!” Jiraiya snaps, scrambling upright with a glare. “I could totally have handled them, teme, you didn’t have to jump in!”

Almost over top of his words, Orochimaru huffs quietly, crosses his arms over his chest, and returns sharply, “I only did it because Tsunade would be sad—”

They feel it at the same time, if the way Jiraiya yelps and Orochimaru sucks in a sharp breath is anything to go by. A faint scratch against the skin, a trace, a tickle like someone has taken a calligraphy brush to their skin. Orochimaru glances down, watching Jiraiya's words scrawl themselves messily across his arm, and glances up. Jiraiya is staring right back at him, eyes wide.

“Oh,” the other boy says, almost shakily. And then— “Aw, but I wanted a girl with big boobs, not a gross _guy_!”

Entirely too familiar with this refrain by now, Orochimaru rolls his eyes. “I'm not a guy,” he points out, and pointedly holds up his arm to show Jiraiya's words printing themselves across his skin.

Jiraiya splutters, then harrumphs, crossing his arms over his chest and sticking his tongue out. “Whatever. You're _Orochimaru_.”

“Cleverly deduced.” Orochimaru rolls his eyes again, then turns to collect his groceries. Two steps is all he manages before he pauses, though, hesitating between choices. But—

“I'm making hot pot,” he says without looking back. “I don’t like eating leftovers, so if you want to eat with me, come on.”

There's a moment of surprised stillness, and then the quick pad of sandals across the grass. “Teme,” Jiraiya says, but it’s very close to fond. He thrusts his arm out, showing Orochimaru the words inscribing themselves in his own neat hand.

That, Orochimaru thinks wryly, is going to get very annoying _very_ fast.

Still, when Jiraiya reaches out and oh-so-casually links their fingers with a glance that dares Orochimaru to protest, Orochimaru doesn’t.


	40. Kakashi/Obito

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where your soulmate’s last words to you are written on your body.

_You haven’t forgotten it, have you? The way your name reverberates across the world—Kakashi of the Sharingan!_

They're the words engraved into Kakashi's skin, the sign of his soul’s perfect match, but he hates them.

He hates them _so much_.

If only, he thinks in the middle of the night, bent over the sink in the ANBU barracks with the skin on his arm scrubbed raw and bleeding. If only he’d _thought_ about it, paid attention, been a friend, a teammate, _anything_ , maybe he could have saved Obito. Maybe then he wouldn’t have this damned eye, this _precious_ eye, this guilt that weighs in his chest like his ribcage has been re-forged in lead.

How else would he get a Sharingan eye when neither of his parents was an Uchiha? How else would he get it than from his Uchiha teammate, too noble for his own good?

He hunches over, rubs at his arm until the scalding water runs red, scrubs and scrubs and scrubs away the evidence until Genma finds him and drags him out, but the words never change.

The skin grows back, the words reform.

Even if they didn’t, Kakashi knows them all too well, has them burned into his heart and mind and soul.

He’ll never forget.

 

( _Kakashi of the Sharingan_.

Kakashi stares at the ghost of his best friend and worse enemy, the boy who died for him twice over, and can't even move, the sound of his words ringing in his ears. Obito smiles back at him, small and a little wry, and—he must have heard Kakashi speak his words right before he died.

The world fades away, the sight of Kakashi's soulmate vanishing like fog cleared by the rising sun, and his eyes burn. He closes them, sucks in a breath that rattles in his lungs, and wonders if he can still pretend the wetness on his cheeks is due entirely to Obito's eyes.

 _Really_ , he thinks bitterly as he steps back onto the battlefield. _Can there be anything more cruel than being left with last words_?

If there is, Kakashi certainly doesn’t want to know it.)


	41. Kagami/Tobirama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where your soulmate’s ghost haunts you when they die.

They don’t even manage to bring a body back.

Kagami sits in front of the Memorial Stone that already bears far too many names, given their years of war. The most recent additions are still rough, not yet worn smooth by time and weather, and he stares at the very last name on the list. Danzō and Hiruzen squabbled over who would be the one to carve it, fought like the children they used to be until Utatane snatched the chisel right out of their grasping fingers and pressed it into Kagami's hands.

His lettering is perfect, he thinks a little absently, staring at it even though it hasn’t changed in the days since he carved it. Calligraphy was always one of his talents, though—Tobirama was fond of the way he wrote, even if that hurts a little now to think of.

All too clearly, Kagami can remember the last time they were in bed together, Tobirama sprawled out on his back, as lazy as a cat on the hearth, watching through heavy-lidded eyes as Kagami traced a brush across his skin in thick lines of black. So elegant, he’d thought, and marveled that this man was his, that when he had finally worked up the courage to confess Tobirama hadn’t rejected him, the way he had wholly expected. He’d kissed Kagami instead, smiled at him just a little, crooked and wry, until Kagami had broken through his shock enough to all but tackle the man.

Love isn’t something the Uchiha admit to easily. It’s frowned upon, too much of an extreme, but—

But Kagami knows what he felt, knows what he saw in Tobirama’s eyes when they rose together the morning before the mission. Knows it in the way Tobirama kissed him before they left his house, gentle and soft with the promise of a future.

He chokes on a sob half-swallowed, burying his face in his hands. Cries, and isn’t ashamed of his tears, because he loved a beautiful man, was loved in return, and lost him. If there's anything in the world worth his grief, it’s the days to come that will be as empty as the last week has been, devoid of all the little things that once brought a smile to his face.

And then there are hands, slim and heavily callused, curling around his shoulders. The touch is light, almost insubstantial, and wavers like heavy mist against his skin. Kagami jerks his head up, one hand automatically going for a kunai, but—

Tobirama stares back at him, pale and faded around the edges like a water-warped photograph. He raises a hand to frame Kagami's cheek, not quite touching, and Kagami sobs. His body shakes with the force of it, ugly grief and wrenching relief mixed up with overwhelming loss, and presses his own hand over the half-formed impression of Tobirama’s.

“I love you,” he says, thick with tears.

Tobirama smiles, the slight, barely-there one he reserves for Kagami alone, and says in a voice that echoes as if from a great distance, “That much I never doubted, Kagami. And I to you as well.”


	42. Sasuke/Sakura/Naruto

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where you and your soulmate(s) share an emotional link.

They’ve grown into themselves, Sakura likes to think. They’ve grown into each other. A disaster when they started out, undoubtedly, but—better now.

She leans over the campfire, watching the sparks leap as the logs shift and fall. The heat of it is a balm against the descending night, sharp with the bite of oncoming winter. Their mission likely won't be over before it hits them fully, so Sakura is going to enjoy the hell out of any nights that are less than frigid in the meantime.

A breath of contentment from two directions makes her glance up, trying to hide the smile already pulling at her lips. “Geez, you two,” she complains without meaning a word of it. “The water isn’t even boiling yet.”

Naruto cracks one eye open and grins at her, though he doesn’t move his head out of Sasuke's lap. His amusement sparks in her the exact same way the embers in the campfire do, rich orange-gold and balanced. “You're just jealous, Sakura-chan,” he challenges cheerfully, and the edge of wickedness shades towards orange in her mind.

With a faint smile of his own, Sasuke threads his fingers more firmly into Naruto's hair, stroking the blond locks away from Naruto's face with an absentness in his expression that’s belied by the tension-tight flicker of hunger through their bond.

Where Naruto is all bright colors, shifting at a moment’s notice, Sasuke is different, dark hues with gentle gradients as they change. Naruto is better at reading him even now, Sakura knows, but she’s learning. Slowly but surely, they all are.

She wonders, sometimes, how she feels to them, what colors they’ve attached the swell of her emotions. Wonders if they can feel the way things are shifting, coming into balance in a way they’ve never managed before. When they were children, Sasuke was inscrutable and Naruto was overwhelming, and Sakura is certain she wasn’t any better. They struggled, hurt each other, broke apart and fell back together unable to resist the pull, and somewhere in the confusion of it all they grew up. Almost despite themselves, she thinks, amused, as she pushes to her feet.

Naruto holds out his hands for her immediately, makes to grab her and pull her down, and Sakura laughs, dodging until she’s practically on top of him. _Then_ she flops down on his stomach, making him wheeze theatrically and Sasuke chuckle.

“I started the fire, so someone gets to watch the food,” she reminds them, stretching out on top of Naruto and propping herself up on her elbows mostly to hear him whine at her.

“Dobe,” Sasuke says pointedly, nudging Naruto with his sandal. When Naruto pouts at him, he smirks, and adds, “Sakura gets a turn.”

With a heavy sigh, Naruto squirms out from under Sakura's weight, neatly tipping her into his spot on the grass. “Fine, fine,” he huffs, though all Sakura can feel from him is amusement. “You’d better appreciate it, Sakura-chan. Those fingers are even more magical than yours.”

“Mm.” Sakura rests her head on Sasuke's thigh, humming contentedly as Sasuke's long fingers stroke over her scalp. “See if I ever heal one of your grievous wounds again, you ungrateful jerk.”

That gets another chuckle from Sasuke, along with a ripple of amusement that’s the deep purple of new irises. He’s smart enough not to disagree with either of them, and Sakura closes her eyes, listening to the put-upon grumbling as Naruto wades into the bushes in search of more firewood. In her mind, the rise and fall of Naruto's emotions is like an ocean of fire, forever in flux. Sasuke is the cool, calm shore, anchoring her between drowning and feeling nothing. Maybe it’s a little silly, but Sakura like to think of herself as the cherry tree growing between them, not able to flourish without either, the same way Naruto and Sasuke crash together too hard without her there to moderate them.

It wasn’t always so easy between them, but she thinks that’s what makes this even more precious.

And, of course, it makes it a hell of a lot easier to feel Naruto's flare of surprise and indignation when he very literally trips over one of the missing-nin they're hunting in the dark.

Sasuke makes a quiet noise of disbelief, pressing a hand over his eyes. Sakura just laughs, pushing to her feet and offering Sasuke a hand. “Come on,” she urges, and Sasuke sighs and takes it, letting her pull him to his feet.


	43. Helga/Rowena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where when you dream you’re seeing whatever your soulmate is currently experiencing.

She dreams of books and high, chilly towers, of winds that whip the trees and howl through the hills in the winter. Dreams of slim, pale hands and raven hair and spellwork that flows like liquid starlight. There's a majesty, a beauty to it that’s absent from Helga's more commonplace, functional charms, and she can't help the faint thread of insecurity that runs through her each time she wakes. Her soulmate is someone brilliant, someone glorious. Helga is just Helga, praised for her hard work but otherwise painfully average.

“Don’t talk like that,” Godric tells her, perched on the edge of the well as he watches her mend pots with careful charms. “You make it sound like grand workings are the only thing worthy of magic—like they're the only thing that would make you worthy of her. Surely you're not so dense.”

Helga rolls her eyes, just a little, even though she knows he’s trying to be helpful. “I don’t even know where she is,” she points out, struggling with a bit of copper that doesn’t want to spread thin enough. “You might have the advantage of traveling hither and yon, Godric, but some of us—ow!”

Instantly, Godric is crouched at her side, studying the deep cut in her hand. He raises a brow at her, but doesn’t say anything, just prods the wound with the tip of his wand and watches with satisfaction as it seals itself up.

“Careful,” he tells her mildly, and meanders away to groom his mare, leaving Helga feeling both vaguely cross and rather like she just lost an argument.

That night, when she dreams of what her soulmate is doing, she’s in the library again. There's a massive stack of books on the table, and another open in front of her soulmate, but what catches Helga's eye is the scrap of paper propped up against an inkwell. At the top is written _FOR YOUR HAND_ in large letters, and underneath is the description of a healing spell Helga has never encountered before.

Her soulmate keeps glancing at the paper, dark hair edging her vision as she moves, and after several hours she finally reaches out, pulls the paper closer, and adds beneath the spell in a neat hand, _My name is Rowena Ravenclaw_.

 _Oh_ , Helga thinks, in something like awe. She hadn’t thought of something like that. How clever, really.

When she wakes this time, she’s smiling. There's a name on the tip of her tongue, and she knows precisely who to ask to help her find the woman from her dreams. Godric’s wanderlust will finally be good for something after all.


	44. Hashirama/Obito

For as long as Obito has been alive, the timer on his wrist has counted backwards.

Strange, he hears, every day from the moment he can first understand. Unnatural. Shouldn’t have happened.

(Sometimes he can't tell if they're talking about the timer or Obito himself.)

It doesn’t matter, he tells himself. He’s in love with Rin, anyway. Whatever soulmate is at the end of his warped countdown will just have to deal, if he even has one at all.

He keeps thinking that all the way through, right up until his second death, and then—

Rin laughs at him, puts her hands on his shoulders. “Time to change things,” she tells him cheerfully, and Obito hasn’t even opened his mouth to ask what the hell she’s talking about when there’s a hard, fast _shove_. It feels like he’s being sucking into Kamui against his will—unfortunately something that has definitely happened before—or like jumping through dimensions with Sakura's flame a burning beacon behind him. He twists and falls and is flung through time itself.

There's a jolt as the world steadies. Obito tumbles head over heels through the air, the ground nearing at ferocious speed, and the counter on his arm judders and _shifts_. It’s not running backward anymore, not counting in negative numbers any longer. It’s simply counting down, numbers dropping at a frantic rate, but Obito can't keep his eyes on it with the ground so close. He throws out his chakra like an unformed shield, slams his Mokuton down into the earth and just sees it explode with greenery before he’s impacting with a crash that almost jars his consciousness back into darkness.

It takes several moments for him to get his breath back, lying flat on the ground on a blanket of leaves and soft vines. His head is spinning, and he pushes himself partway upright with a groan, pressing a hand to his temple.

Several dozen shinobi in old-fashioned armor are staring at him. Half of them are Uchiha, and the other half are Senju.

 _Oh, fuck you, Rin_ , Obito thinks, more exasperated than anything else, and rolls his eyes. One more glance at his time shows that it’s at less than two minutes, and if his soulmate is goddamn _Madara_ he is going to check right back out of this life and go join Rin in the Pure Land whether she likes it or not. Even Obito hasn’t done anything bad enough to deserve _that_.

“Senju! Control your damned greenery!” snaps an unfortunately familiar voice, and there's a crunch of shinobi sandals across fragile vines. Obito narrows his eyes, and can feel the faint, unhappy stirring in the plants around him. Subtly, he feeds his chakra into them; if they want to eat Madara, he will give them every bit of help they want and then help them through the indigestion afterwards. It would be the least he could do for such a service to humanity.

“They're not _mine_!” another voice protests, this one also familiar, though Obito has only ever heard it from a zombie. The defensive tone turns admiring, and Hashirama says, “Oh, look, they’re flowering! Isn’t that pretty?”

There's a disgusted grunt, and a flare of chakra and smoke. Wet greenery crackles as it’s suddenly scorched, and Obito has to grit his teeth to keep from immediately lashing out. Better to hold off—more of an element of surprise like that. He staggers to his feet, leaning heavily on a sapling that’s just sprouting upwards, and looks up just as—

A curtain of hanging vines is brushed aside, and Senju Hashirama pushes his way through, being careful not to break the tendrils. He smiles up at them, then turns, and his eyes meet Obito's.

With a click, with a tremor that settles in his bones, the timer on Obito's wrist hits zero.

So very slowly, Hashirama looks down at his own wrist, eyes widening. Then he turns back to Obito, the shock on his face sliding sideways into joy, and he asks breathlessly, “You?”

Self-consciously, Obito presses a hand over the deep scars on his face, though he can't hide the mismatched eyes or his battered body. “Me,” he says, but before he can get out so much as another word there's a rush of steps, arms around his waist, and he’s suddenly lifted and spun in a circle, Hashirama’s happy laugher ringing in the air around them.

“My soulmate,” he says with almost painful wonder, and the breath catches in Obito's throat as they slow, as Hashirama sets him back on the ground. Dark eyes are watching him, full of joy, like he’s the most beautiful thing Hashirama has seen in his life.

Not one has ever looked at Obito like that before.

“I—” he starts, but can't find the words to go on. Always alone, always an outcast, a freak, an unforgivable murderer. But Hashirama is looking at him, and—

“It can't be,” Obito says, and the words rasp in his throat. “I—all I deserve is death, not—”

A kiss silences him, steals the words right from his mouth as he’s pulled closer, right up against Hashirama’s chest and kissed like they’re both drowning. Obito gasps, arches into the though before he can make himself move away, and feels Hashirama’s groan rumble through his chest before he pulls away.

“Nothing in unforgivable if you’ve changed,” he says seriously, holding Obito's startled gaze. “That you even think that shows you have. So please, don’t give up.”

Obito presses a hand over the back of Hashirama’s where it rests on his cheek, feels the warmth and life and rising-sap-scent of it, spring given human form. He closes his eyes, not quite able to say anything, and simply offers a nod.

Hashirama smiles, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Your plants are beautiful,” he says with warm enthusiasm. “Is this Mokuton? You have it as well?”

Obito opens his mouth to answer, but before he can there’s another burst of fire and scorched-plant smell. Both he and Hashirama wince, but a moment later Madara stalks into view. He’s huffing for breath, smeared with sap, and looks pissed. “Like we need _more_ of you plant freaks!” he snaps, and levels an angry finger at Obito's face. “ _You!_ What do you think you're doing, disrupting our battle? This was a pitched fight between the Senju and the Uchiha! _No interference_!”

Obito stares at the man flatly, and the very pretty climbing maple takes advantage of its target’s sudden stillness to jump Madara like a big cat going in for the kill.

“Er…” Hashirama says awkwardly, watching his frenemy flail and shriek. “Shouldn’t you stop them? That hydrangea looks hungry.”

Obito waves that off. “He deserves it for being an asshole,” he says dismissively. “And if he doesn’t yet, he will soon. Now, about that kiss—”

“I approve,” Tobirama says immediately, pushing into Obito's landing spot with Izuna one step behind him. He looks Obito up and down, lingering for a moment on his eyes, and inclines his head. “Your soulmate, brother? How auspicious.”

Izuna eyes his brother’s frantic attempts to claw the spiny flowering quince away from his face, then very clearly decides that it’s safer just to leave Madara to his fate and wanders over to give Obito a smile. “Nice to meet the Senju Clan Head’s future husband,” he offers, and lifts a brow. “Especially seeing as you're an Uchiha.”

Hashirama’s head snaps around at that, and he studies Obito with clear surprise. “Really?” he asks, and Obito tenses involuntarily, ready for the rejection that’s—

He’s swept up in another massive, overwhelming hug, kissed breathless, then set down so Hashirama can grin at him, bright and happy and so handsome that Obito kind of can't breathe. “You're the answer!” Hashirama says delightedly. “The answer to everything! I'm so glad!” He hugs Obito again, wrapping him in strong arms, pulling him in close, and­—

The last person who hugged Obito was Rin. She did it twice. Beyond that, no one ever wanted to, no one ever _did_. They were certainly never glad that Obito was around, never said he made them happy. He just—doesn’t know what to do with affection like this, with touching, with _joy_ directed at him alone.

But…

He raises his arms, carefully, cautiously hugs Hashirama back.

He thinks that it might be nice to get used to it.


	45. Kakashi/Tenzo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where you and your soulmate share an emotional link.

He feels it for the first time with Kakashi hovering above him, Chidori a shrill screech in his ears. The lightning casts shifting shadows over the abandoned laboratory he had hoped never to enter again, and Kinoe closes his eyes even though he shouldn’t. He’s resigned to this, to everything—the Foundation is all he knows, and he won't-can't betray it.

The flicker of painful desperation that races through him is not his own.

Behind the mask, Kinoe’s eyes fly open, and it takes all of his many years of training not to jerk, not to give it away. Hard enough to bury the surprise even as it rises, to push it down before it’s fully formed and could be felt across a bond. Not point in risking things, Danzō always says, but this—

This isn’t just a theory anymore, and Kinoe is so stunned by the realization that he doesn’t even put up a fight as Kakashi drags him to his knees and ties his hands behind his back.

“I hear Foundation agents are able to completely suppress their emotions,” he says, even as his hand shoves Kinoe lightly forward.

Kinoe’s heart falters, falls out of rhythm in a way it hasn’t in years. He takes a breath, keeps his head bowed, and answers, “Not just our emotions. Shinobi of the Foundation have no name, no past or future, no soulmate. We exist only for our mission.”

He doesn’t let himself feel anything, because if Kakashi feels it too—

(Deep down, buried under so many layers of darkness and orders and _we are not Konoha shinobi, we are of the Foundation_ , something inside him does not belong to Kinoe. At the very core of him is one small seed, curled up and waiting for the light, and despite all Danzō has done to drive it out of him that seed still calls itself Tenzō.)

After the snakes, after the fight, after Kinoe saves the life of the man he’s supposed to kill, as he’s hovering over Kakashi’s unconscious body with a kunai drawn, he just—stops. Maybe it’s that seed. Maybe it’s the memory of Kakashi cutting his hands free and telling him _If you don’t want to die, then be grateful you're alive_. Maybe it’s the fact that Kakashi never stopped calling him a friend, even as Kinoe tried so hard to kill him.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s the fact that he can tell from here that Kakashi is having a nightmare, even though his expression hasn’t changed. The fear flickers through him the same way as Kakashi’s lightning, just _other_ enough that Kinoe is certain it isn’t his own, and he can feel Kakashi’s regret crest like a wave.

 _I couldn’t protect her_ , Kakashi said, and Kinoe wonders if he’s dreaming of Nohara Rin right now.

_Shinobi of the Foundation have no name, no past or future, no soulmate. We exist only for our mission._

That’s been all he’s known since he was a child. He _can't_ disobey orders. Danzō wants Kakashi’s eye to replace his own, and Kinoe is to bring it to him, and kill Kakashi to hide the evidence.

Fear spikes into awful, wrenching terror, washed with grief, and Kinoe takes a breath. He sets the kunai down, and for the first time in his life, he lets himself _feel_.

“It’s all right,” he whispers, reaching out, and without Kakashi’s mask in the way his fingers touch skin so easily. Another pause, and Kinoe—

No.

 _Tenzō_ drags his mask up, lets it fall carelessly to the side. He leans in, presses his forehead to Kakashi’s, and somehow he can feel _more_ like this than through a simple press of fingers. More skin, more presence, even the shaky brush of Kakashi’s breath against his cheek. It’s gentle, and it rouses something in Tenzō that he’s never quite felt before. That he’s never _let_ himself feel, but this time instead of pushing it down he embraces it, feeds the emotions through the fledgling bond and into Kakashi’s poison-trapped mind. Comfort, protectiveness, devotion, friendship, and the aching, bittersweet tenderness that Tenzō harbors for this ridiculous, inscrutable shinobi who’s managed to teach him everything worth knowing in the few brief times they’ve met.

 _My name is Tenzō_ , he tells himself, and lets his eyes open, stares at Kakashi from so close that his face is pale skin and scar and shaggy white hair. _I am—I am a shinobi of Konoha, and I have a soulmate._

It sounds too beautiful to ever be even close to true, but it _is_.

In that moment, the decision to betray Danzō comes as easily as his next breath.


	46. Sasuke/Sai

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where you have the date you’ll meet your soulmate on your body.

“You know,” Naruto says, “I could cut off that other sleeve for you! Then you’d match! Aren’t artists supposed to like that kind of thing?”

 Sai gets the feeling that Naruto doesn’t actually know much of anything about what artists are supposed to like and is just guessing wildly. It’s not the first time he’s had the feeling. It is, however, just ever so slightly more aggravating than the other times, or it would be if Sai allowed himself to feel anything at all.

(There's a nervous flutter in his chest. He’s tense. He’s worried. He’s _happy_. But he isn’t any of those things, because he’s Root, and Root shinobi have no emotions.)

“Thank you, dickless,” he answers, and friends are supposed to sound thankful and appreciative when responding to each other’s requests, but Sai mostly just hopes he manages _cheerful_. Anything more complicated is usually hard, and right now, _especially_ when it’s about his right arm—

He doesn’t touch it. His sleeve is long on that side for a reason, and the numbers are hidden, high up near the bend of his elbow. None of his teammates have seen them, not even Captain Yamato, who’s spent all day watching him with uncomfortably knowing eyes.

“My clothes are very fashionable, though,” Sai adds, even as Naruto is opening his mouth to loudly protest the nickname. (Sai had realized after the first emphatic objection that _that_ nickname, at least, would not make them click as sudden best friends, but Sai _also_ suspects that if he were allowed to have emotions, he’d be a dick, so it all works out.) “Ah! I see! Friends often dress in coordinated outfits, don’t they? Should be both look like we went dumpster-diving for our clothes behind a color-blind octogenarian’s house?”

Naruto blinks. His mouth opens, and then closes without anything coming out. Sai can practically see him trying to figure out if he was just insulted.

Sakura has a sudden and inexplicable coughing fit into the bottle of water she’s drinking, and Captain Yamato is very purposefully digging through his pack. When Naruto turns to them to gauge reactions, he gets no help, so her turns back to Sai with a squinty look of suspicion and levels a finger at him.

“My clothes are awesome!” he insists. Loudly, because it seems everything Naruto does is at top volume. Even _sleeping_ , and Sai hadn’t really thought that was possible. “You’re just jealous ‘cause mine actually _cover me_!”

It is, Sai will admit, rather a better comeback than he expected. Still, he offers his teammate a charming smile (tries, at least; Shin always told him it made his face look weird) and goes back to his ration bar.

He very, very carefully doesn’t touch his right arm.

His breath comes faster as the moment approaches, as he slips down into the tunnels and pretends he can't feel the date and time of his meeting carved into his skin as if with a hot knife. Easier to focus on the mission, on Danzō’s orders—

Except, for the first time in his life, it’s _not_.

Orochimaru is walking in front of him, Kabuto behind him. He’s in their base, so impossibly close to his objective. Danzō has every faith that Sai's abilities can match Sasuke's, and even if they can't, Sai will win. He’s Root; there are only missions to be completed, objectives to be fulfilled. No doubt, no hesitation, no mercy.

“A visitor for you, Sasuke,” Orochimaru says, full of laconic amusement and a thread of  something Sai can't pinpoint. “From Konoha.”

The date on his arm _burns_.

Inside the room, Uchiha Sasuke turns to face the door, one hand resting on his sword. Taller than Sai, almost as pale, with the same hair he sported in his file and which Sai personally finds just as ridiculous as Naruto insists it is. But this isn’t the bored resentment of Sasuke as a genin; this is Orochimaru’s favored apprentice, deadly and fully aware of it, the last Uchiha—

Dark eyes go wide, and Sasuke stops moving.

It probably says something about Sai's training, that it takes him several long moments to realize that the pain in his arm has entirely vanished.

“Interesting,” Orochimaru says, half-idle, though he doesn’t look back at either of them as he crosses to the desk on the far side of the room.

(Sai wonders, in one of those split-second flashes of insight that used to make Danzō especially cruel in training, just how long ago Orochimaru’s date passed. A very long time, he thinks, and doesn’t allow himself to dwell.)

“You knew,” Sasuke says, short and angry, but he doesn’t look at his teacher, either.

The implication helps Sai finally find his voice. “That’s not possible,” he says, and tries to make it sound polite, though he doesn’t think he manages. He feels dazed, fifteen degrees off of center when there’s no real reason to be. He still has his mission, his purpose, and this—this could be an opening. He could _use_ this to get to close, to take Sasuke by surprise—

Except that Sai can't move an inch.

“Well,” Kabuto says, ducking his head just a little so that the light reflecting off his glasses hides his eyes. It doesn’t hide the amusement in his voice, however. “You’ll certainly have the pales, prettiest children genetics can achieve. You must be so proud.”

Sasuke rolls his eyes, just faintly, though his gaze immediately falls back to Sai. He takes a step forward, then another, shifts into a slow stalk that brings them face-to-face in a handful of strides.

Sai could go for his own sword. He has every chance of reaching it before Sasuke can grab his.

Sai doesn’t.

“You betrayed your team,” Sasuke says flatly, though his eyes are intent.

Words don’t come easily, all tangled up on Sai's tongue even though his trainers used to accuse him of talking too much. “I'm Root,” he says, as though that explains everything, and to him it does. Sasuke, however, won't—

“Hn.” Sasuke, of course, doesn’t _care_. He looks Sai over, then steps to the side, past and around him.

Sai could sink a kunai into his spine, his jugular, his kidney.

Another thing Sai completely fails to do. His head is spinning, caught up in _what do I do_ and _what now_. No good answers, no way to _find_ answers, and it’s not as if Sai has ever made decisions for himself—

“Are you coming?” Sasuke asks, casting a half-glance back over his shoulder as he pauses in the doorway.

“What?” Sai asks, and he’s never before been caught quite this much off guard.

“Coming,” Sasuke repeats, audibly annoyed but still waiting. “I'm forming a team. You're my soulmate. You're coming with me.” A pause, and Sasuke's fingers tighten around the hilt of his sword. He looks away again, out into the hall, and Sai is acutely aware of Orochimaru still and silent across the room. “My brother can't find you. You either come with me or Orochimaru will keep you here.”

Something cold slides through Sai's chest. Uchiha Itachi is a man even Danzō fears, and it’s easy enough to recall the files, the way he tortured Sasuke both the night of the Massacre and the next time they met outside Konoha. Easy enough to imagine what a man who slaughtered his entire clan would do to the soulmate of the little brother he’s made a sport of taunting.

“You assume I'm staying with you,” Sai says instead, and the smile he wears feels no more or less fake than it always does. “Lord Danzō sent me to kill you.”

Sasuke's snort is entirely unimpressed. “I've already given you three chances. If you haven’t noticed any of them, you're a pretty terrible assassin.”

He is not, unfortunately, wrong.

Just for a moment, Sai thinks of Naruto, of Sakura, of Captain Yamato. He left them on the surface, abandoned them like Sasuke said, and now he’s considering abandoning Danzō and Root as well.

Of their own volition, his fingers rise to press against the still-tender mark on his forearm. Numbers, a date recorded down to the second, and that mark is one thing that has always marked Sai as _Sai_. Not even Danzō has found a way to erase them from his operatives yet.

It’s a mark that Sasuke shares. Sai scans his soulmate, searching carefully, and—

There. Right along the curve of his shoulder where his robe falls away, the skin still faintly red, are the same numbers Sai long ago memorized. A match.

A pair.

Sai takes a step, and it feels a little as if the world is falling away beneath his feet.

(He follows Sasuke, catches the barest hint of something like a smile as Sasuke turns away, and the earth has never felt steadier.)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [touch-starved](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8037910) by [Romennim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Romennim/pseuds/Romennim)
  * [The Aftermath](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9110131) by [stereden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stereden/pseuds/stereden)
  * [It had to be enough.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10946583) by [SkyWarrior66](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyWarrior66/pseuds/SkyWarrior66)
  * [Exchanging sadness for tree sap](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11000898) by [LadyKG](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyKG/pseuds/LadyKG)




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